A Root in Dry Soil
by Rorry Lamb
Summary: He's all crisp lines and polite smiles, the textbook definition of a gentleman. But then he looks at her and his eyes burn with something that completely contradicts his gentle appearance. Eloise knows she should run. Running is smart, running is safe. But she's always been attracted to danger and Elijah Mikaelson? Well, he's the textbook definition of that too.
1. Chapter 1

When she'd opened up her shop Eloise hadn't really been thinking about how it would impact her life. She just wanted a place where she could go and work on spells and teach herself more magic while also helping anyone else who might want to do the same by providing valuable resources. Sure, she might have looked like the quirky twenty-two year old college student with a weird obsession with the occult to anyone outside the supernatural community but that was fine with her.

Now she's got all sorts of supernatural creatures and the occasional human in the loop that comes in to buy this or that. Sometimes they even request specialty items. Which is how Eloise finds herself grinding dried vervain into a fine powder one stormy Saturday afternoon.

The shop's empty, the last customer having left with a bag full of candles and a container of scented oil nearly an hour ago, leaving Eloise with nothing but her thoughts and the task at hand.

Eloise is startled out of her work when the phone hanging from the wall behind the register begins ringing, the sharp metallic shriek ripping apart the serene quiet that had fallen over the shop while Eloise had worked. Wiping her hands on her thighs Eloise sighs and makes her way over to the phone.

She flips her hair over her shoulder before taking the phone off the receiver and holding it up to her ear, "Thank you for calling Dispel and That Spell, this is Eloise speaking how may I help you?"

"Dispel and That Spell? Are you shitting me, Ellie?"

"Miranda thought it was a nice name so don't you fucking judge me."

"You and your roommate are idiots."

Eloise smirks as she leans back against the counter, eyes on the door to make sure she doesn't accidentally ignore any customers that might wander in while she's on the phone with Damon. She probably won't get any customers right now considering the fact that it's raining pretty badly outside and most of Eloise's customers don't tend to come during lunch hours anyway. Which means she has basically all the time in the world to talk.

But still, better safe then sorry.

"What do you want, Damon?" Eloise asks, smiling a bit when her vampire sputters theatrically.

"Why do you always assume I want something?" Damon demands, sounding mildly offended.

Is she didn't know better Eloise might have thought he was being serious.

"Because I know you... If you just wanted to talk you would have waited until after hours to call."

"Fine, you got me," Damon's voice is playful but Eloise can hear the tension. "What do you know about Klaus Mikaelson?"

Eloise purses her lips, hums thoughtfully, and says, "Well, not that much to be honest. I just know what I hear through the grapevine... Why?"

There's a long pause on the other side, muffled whispers barely audible, and Eloise drums perfectly manicured fingers against the lacquered wood of the counter as she waits for Damon to finish whatever argument he's having with... Probably Stefan. And if Eloise had to guess she'd bet good money on their argument revolving around the Petrova Doppelganger the two of them are so hung up on.

"Look, can you just come to Mystic Falls?" Damon asks softly over the line.

"Um, why?"

"Because I need my witch."

"What happened to the witch you have?" Eloise demands, though it's nice to know that Damon prefers _her_ over the Bennett witch.

"Bennett's great and all but you're _my_ witch. My rock. My fucking quarterback."

"Quarterback? Really?"

"Ok fuck you too, I'm trying to prove how important you are to me and how much I need you, so could you not act like a raging witch?" Damon asks.

"Har har, you're so funny," Eloise pinches the bridge of her nose. "Look, I can't just drop everything and come out there, ok? I have orders that need to go out this week and shipments coming in."

"Have Miranda take care of it."

Eloise runs her fingers through her hair, not caring that she's messing with the curls she's taken so much care with early that morning.

She _could_ ask Miranda to run the shop. There's plenty magical residue in the shop for the Siphoner to use should she need it and Eloise can always reinforce the magic woven into the walls. It's not like Eloise doesn't trust her roommate, she trusts her with her life. It's just that this shop is her baby, it's her life. And Damon's just asking her to drop everything and come to Mystic Falls.

Which is odd in and of itself because Damon has never once in the four years they've known each other asked to her come to his home town.

"Is it really that important that I come?" Eloise asks, gnawing absently on her lip as she looks around the brightly lit shop.

"I wouldn't be asking you to come out if it weren't."

Eloise nods her head and says, "Alright. I'll ask Mirdanda if she can watch the shop."

A huff of breath escapes Damon and she can hear him turn away to tell someone that she's coming out before he turns his attention back to the phone, "You're seriously the best ever. I owe you one. When do you think you'll be out?"

"I can maybe leave tomorrow? I have to get all my shit together and make sure Miranda has everything she'll need before I cane actually leave." Eloise replies.

"Ok, just come straight to the boarding house, you can crash there."

"You totally owe me one Damon." Eloise says but she's not actually expecting anything from the blue eyed vampire.

Eloise hangs up before he can say anything in response.

Damon owes her a lot of favors, she's been doing spells for him and keeping an eye on Mystic Falls since they met all those years ago. Never once has Eloise ever asked for anything in return, but she likes dangling it over the vampire's head. Likes to watch him squirm. Besides, Eloise's birthday is in a few weeks and Damon always gets her something nice.

The little chunk of raw garnet dangling from her neck is testament enough to that.

Humming softly Eloise returns to her previous task of grinding dried vervain into powder to be mixed into a lotion. It had been ordered by a young woman with soft green eyes and Eloise hadn't asked questions. Eloise never asks questions. It's probably why people like her so much. Eloise likes to think that her customers place a certain amount of trust in her and she prides herself on not breaking that trust.

With steady hands Eloise measures up the vervain and carefully stirs it into the sweet smelling lotion as she mumbles under her breath.

She almost doesn't hear the bell above the door chime, almost doesn't catch the whiff of the incredibly expensive french perfume Miranda likes to wear, almost doesn't smile when the siphoner wraps her arms around Eloise's waist and rests her chin on her shoulder.

Almost.

"I brought you lunch." Miranda says, chin digging into Eloise's shoulder for a moment. "It's on the counter."

"You didn't have to."

"Course I did, you're my person. I like to feed my person."

"Damon was right, you're an idiot."

Miranda scoffs as she pulls away, red hair dancing around slim shoulders as she moves to stand in front of Eloise's work table. The girl's nails, sharp and matte black, click as she drums them against the wood.

"What did he want?" Miranda asks, eyebrow raised.

"I need to take a week or two and head out to Mystic Falls. Would you mind watching the shop?"

"That's fine but why are you going to Mystic Falls exactly?"

"I don't really know. Damon asked about Klaus Mikaelson and then asked if I'd come out."

If Miranda's sudden stillness weren't a big indicator of just how badly her statement had affected the girl, her strangled choking noise sure as fuck is.

"Wait, wait, wait. Hold up. Klaus Mikaelson? As in the original vampire... _That_ Klaus Mikaelson?"

"So you know him?" Eloise asks a bit sarcastically, because everyone who's anyone in the supernatural community knows who Klaus Mikaelson is... Even if just through rumor.

"Fuck, Eloise, everyone in the supernatural community knows, at the very least, not to fuck with him and you're literally prancing off to some podunk town in the middle of ass crack nowhere to do exactly that!"

Eloise casts the other girl a look as she caps the bottle of lotion and sets it off to the side before gathering her dirtied supplies for washing.

"I take it he's dangerous then."

Honestly, Eloise has her suspicions about how dangerous the original is but seeing as she's never actually met him and doesn't ask people to go into details when they mention him... Well, her information is limited.

"If a complete fucking megalomaniac counts for such." Miranda retorts bitterly.

"Well, it's a good thing he is then. I find people obsessed with their own power tend to make the biggest mistakes." Eloise remarks as she makes her way to the beaded curtain hanging in the doorway at the very back of the room where the kitchenette is.

Eloise dumps the dirtied dishes into the sink, turns on the tap, and pours a bit of palm olive into the stream. Miranda enters the small space just as suds begin forming in the bottom of the sink.

The redhead sighs tiredly and pushes Eloise out of the way so she can do the dishes herself. Eloise goes to lean on the door frame where she can keep an eye on the front door and on her thoroughly aggravated roommate. Neither of them say anything for a while until Miranda finishes up and wipes her hands down with a cloth. She opens her mouth to say something but the happy chime of the bell stops her before she can utter a word.

Smiling broadly Eloise makes her way back to the front of the store to help the gaggle of teens who've just come in with their damp clothes and wide smiles. Mostly she's just keeping an eye on them as they giggle and make fun of her things. When one of them, a boy with big eyes and blonde hair, tries to climb the stairs to the second floor where Eloise keeps her more dangerous artifacts the young witch halts him, telling him that there was nothing upstairs he needed to be looking at.

He grumbles, calls her a "Fucking cunt." under his breath, and then he and the rest of the group amble off.

Eloise pretends not to know about the crystals and other less valuable trinkets hidden in their pockets. It's not like they stole anything truly important. Most of the items found on the first floor of the shop aren't nearly as valuable as people seem to think. Trinkets mostly, set up to be viewed and bought by the mortals that come into her shop for nothing more then the aesthetic.

But while they might not be valuable Eloise still has spells on all of her items should someone actually attempt to rob her. In a few hours the objects taken will reappear on Eloise's shelves and the teens will be none-the-wiser to the location of their stolen goods.

Glass beads click together as Miranda pushes aside the strands of the curtain separating the kitchenette from the main part of the shop. She flips wild red curls out of her face, brushes invisible lint off of her shirt, and makes her way to the stairs which she takes two at a time before disappearing from view.

Eloise sighs and glances at the door before following after the other girl.

Miranda is stuffing her bag full of various items when Eloise sees her next. Grimoires, herb bottles, whatever she can get her hands on. By the time she notices Eloise standing behind her the bag is near to bursting.

"I have to go," Miranda says when she finally notices Eloise, "but when you get off work come straight home, ok?"

"Are you going to return those?" Eloise asks.

"If they don't suit my needs."

"Dude, I have grimoires at home."

"Yes, but there might be something in these that your grimoires don't have... Don't worry, I'll return them when I'm done."

Eloise nods hesitantly before she glances at Miranda's hands as she plucks another object from the shelf. Her fingers glow red as she siphons Eloise's magic from the book. She'll have to put the spells back before she goes or make sure Miranda has enough magic to siphon to do so herself.

"Are you leaving then?"

"Yeah, I'm going to go home and do some homework... Think you can close early?"

"Maybe, we'll see."

Miranda gives a brisk nod then turns to leave, her beaded bag thumping heavily against her thigh as she goes on her way and the soft _clink-clink-clink_ of glass bottles tapping against each other can be heard rather clearly. Eloise finds herself wondering just how much Miranda has taken of her herbs but decides that it really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

The auburn haired siphoner pauses at the door and turns to smile at Eloise, a soft thing that reveals the dimples in her cheeks, before grabbing her umbrella and making her way out into the rain, her figure a blur of color as she passes in front of the large windows at the front of Eloise's shop. When she disappears from view Eloise glances at the clock hanging on the wall and frowns.

She's got four hours.

And by the time those four hours have passed and Eloise is finally able to close up her shop there have been three non-supernatural customers, two witches, and a vampire. Eloise tended to them all with a gentle smile but hadn't been upset to see them go. The moment the last customer slipped through her door and into the rain Eloise had waited for him to begin walking away before locking the front door and flipping the sign to inform any stragglers that the shop had closed for the evening.

Cleaning is simple and straightening up the supplies is even easier, it only takes her a few minutes to get everything situated. Then she grabs her raincoat off of the coat hanger behind the counter and her umbrella from the little tin sitting on the floor. Once she's bundled up Eloise makes her way to the door, flips the light switch, unlocks it briefly to step out into the rain, locks the door back up, opens her umbrella, and steps out into the rain.

~X~

Miranda is sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table when Eloise enters the apartment, auburn hair bundled up on the top of her head and held in place with a chip-bag clip, mascara smudged from the number of times she's rubbed at her eyes, tattoos a vibrant contrast to the milky paleness of her skin.

"You're soaked." Miranda remarks as she glances up from the spell she's likely memorizing, "Put your jeans in the tub, I'll deal with them."

"Thank you, Miranda." Eloise says as she toes off her shoes.

She pulls her socks off before walking across the apartment to the bathroom when she strips out of her wet clothes and throws them in the tub. Her shoes end up flipped over and placed above the vent to dry a bit. Next she heads to her bedroom where she digs out a pair of fluffy purple pajama bottoms along with a white tank top which she changes into before making her way to the living room.

"How's the research?"

Miranda shrugs as she pulls a sticky note from the pad lying by her hand and sticks it to the page she's reading, "It's going. How was work."

"Dull."

The siphoner nods slowly before closing the book and setting it off to the side to join the pile.

"What are you looking for?" Eloise asks as she drops down to sit beside her roommate.

"Anything that'll help you with your little original problem."

Eloise moves to rest her cheek on Miranda's shoulder.

"I don't think there's anything in those books, Miranda." She says, causing the other woman to sigh.

"No, probably not, but these are old books and there are some pretty intense spells." Miranda taps her finger against a composition notebook that Eloise hadn't noticed earlier. "I've written a few down for you."

"Thank you... I think you deserve a treat."

"Yeah?"

"Oh hell yeah. What do you say to me making you dinner?"

Miranda shoots her an amused look, "As much as I'd love to get high with you, I have to work tomorrow."

"I was thinking more along the lines of mac and cheese." Eloise intones dryly.

"Mac and cheese is good." Miranda says but her eyes never leave the page she's copying down.

Eloise smiles fondly as she stands and pads into the kitchen to start on dinner. She nearly trips over Miranda's St. Bernard Cujo, a truly terrific name really, but manages to step over the lovable pooch before anything bad can happen to either of them. The dog watches her through heavy eyes as Eloise goes about gathering up everything she'll need to make mac and cheese. It's a very strategic way of begging and even though Eloise knows better then to fall for it... Well, she still ends up tossing him a slice of turkey normally used for sandwiches.

After she's satisfied Cujo is perfectly content to savor his turkey Eloise begins filling a pan with water.

Twenty minutes later Eloise is curled up on the couch watching The Office and nursing a rather unfortunate, and completely accidental, burn while Miranda cleans up her books so she can eat. Most of the books she took from the shop end up in a pile at the end of the coffee table, but some of them she slips into a book bag for Eloise to take with her to Mystic Falls.

"Are you going to take the train or book a flight?" Miranda asks after she's finished putting everything away and has curled up on the couch beside Eloise.

"I'm going to take the car."

"You hate driving."

"I mean, yeah, but it's faster... Besides, if I get bored I can call Damon and he'll just keep me company."

"Won't he be busy chasing Doppleganger tail?" Miranda wonders around a mouthful of mac and cheese.

_Yeah_, Eloise thinks, _probably_.

"If all else fails I'll call you and ask about the shop."

"Please fucking don't."

Miranda's eyebrows pull together as she scowls at Eloise.

The siphoner has watched the shop many, many times for Eloise and nothing's ever happened to the shop. Eloise trusts Miranda to handle anything that might come her way when behind the counter but that doesn't mean she doesn't enjoy giving the red-haired woman shit.

With a snort Eloise finishes off her bowl, nudges Miranda with her elbow, and rises to make her way to the kitchen to clean up her dirty dishes.

"Get me a pop!" Miranda calls as Eloise dumps her bowl into the sink for washing.

"You drink too much pop!" Eloise calls, dishrag cleaning away the leftover cheese from her bowl and spoon. "You're gonna rot your teeth out!"

"But at least I'll have you to mash my food for me!" Miranda calls back.

Eloise rolls her eyes before moving to rinse and dry off her dishes. Each is put in their respective spot in the cupboards and drawers while the damn hand towel Eloise had used gets folded up and put on the counter.

She makes sure to grab a Diet Dr. Pepper for Miranda as she leaves the kitchen.


	2. Chapter 2

Eloise is eleven hours and forty minutes into a twelve hour drive when she finally reaches the big, green _Welcome to Mystic Falls!_ sign. It disappears in a blink as Eloise speeds her Jeep down the surprisingly not so shitty main road leading into the town where Damon was born and raised and eventually killed.

There's a travel mug full of coffee in Eloise's cup holder, half full of stale coffee that she'd gotten at her last gas stop about three hours back. She's not a big coffee drinker but Eloise had needed something to keep her awake, so she'd gotten the biggest cup of coffee she could get her hands on and a bag of lays potato chips which now lays empty in her passenger seat.

While they'd tasted great at the time Eloise thinks that what she really wants is some real food and a bed to sleep in. Both of which she can get at the boarding house much to Eloise's relief. She isn't sure she wants to starve longer then strictly necessary, and going to the local diner to order food would take way more social interaction then the young witch is currently capable of.

So she continues driving until her GPS leads her down a long driveway leading to Damon's home.

"Arrived." Her GPS chirps, the incredibly monotone voice grating on Eloise's nerves.

She pulls off to the side of the circle drive, not entirely sure where she should actually be parking, and turns off her car. Eloise doesn't get out right away, instead she sits and stares at the house in front of her because Eloise has seen some pretty beautiful houses but Damon's is stunning. Not that it can actually be considered a _house _per say.

When she's had enough of feeling like a complete creep Eloise gets out of her car, grabs her things, and makes her way to the front door.

Damon hadn't told her whether or not he'd left a key when he'd talked to her around lunch so Eloise checks the more obvious places one might hide a key but when her search turns up empty Eloise merely rolls her eyes and presses her hand against the door knob before muttering under her breath. There's a low scrape as the door unlocks which makes her smile despite her annoyance.

Even she's smart enough to ward her fucking apartment against intruders.

It's obviously something she and Damon are going to have words about later on seeing as he's not actually home at the moment.

But just to be sure, "Honey! I'm home!"

When no one answers her, admittedly, too jovial cry Eloise steps into the house with her things and shuts the front door behind her.

If she'd thought the outside of the house was nice the inside is even better. Dark wood, red decor, and antiques everywhere. Seriously, half of the stuff decorating the walls could have probably paid for Eloise's entire fall tuition, books included, simply due to the fact that it's old and obviously from different periods of time. A good deal of the decor is obviously from the Civil War era but there's bits from the twenties scattered around too, as well as some lovely bits of pottery and art that must have come from somewhere very much not America.

Eloise can honestly say she's impressed.

First things first, Eloise drags her bags up the stairs to the second floor and hesitantly makes her way to the spare bedroom Damon had told her was ready. After a few goes at it Eloise does find her new room. She spares a moment to admire it before tossing her bags onto the bed to be sorted out later, you know, after she's eaten something that isn't saturated in sugar or salt.

So back into the kitchen she goes, fingers digging into her pocket to fish out her phone so that she can call Miranda and maybe even shoot Damon a text message to let him know she made it safe and sound. She thinks he'd probably appreciate it.

He worries a bit too much in Eloise's expert opinion.

But Miranda worries more, which is why she's the first person Eloise calls once she's got herself a sandwich and a glass of water.

Exactly three rings and a bite later Eloise is greeted with the chipper sound of her roommate's voice.

"Did you make it?" Miranda asks, sounding both mildly concerned that Eloise might not have made it and annoyed that she'd only just now decided to call to let Miranda know if she'd made it or not.

"Yeah, I'm helping myself to Damon's lovely stash of food."

"Not his bourbon?"

"Dude, I just spend twelve hours in a car."

"Your point?"

"I'm tired and as soon as I finish up my sandwich I'm going to bed. I'll steal Damon's precious bourbon tomorrow when we're discussing Klaus Mikaelson and little miss Doppelganger."

A pause, then, "You're such a pansy."

There's fondness there so Eloise doesn't bother to feign offense. Instead she just smiles and says around a mouthful of sandwich says, "How was work today?"

"Boring. I don't understand how you do it all day. There was literally one customer today Eloise! One!" Miranda moans.

"Oh! Was it Mrs. Berti?"

"No... It was some old dude."

"What'd he want?"

"Well, he bought some herbs and ingredients from the upper level. Something to do with warding? I don't know, he was boring."

Eloise rolls her eyes, "Do you only pay attention to the ones that aren't boring?"

"I only pay attention to the boring ones when they give me the jeebies." Miranda replies, and Eloise can practically see her smirk.

A quick glance at the stove tells Eloise it's entirely too late for her to continue carrying on a conversation with as little sleep as she's had. So it's with a reluctant sigh that she bids her roommate goodbye, cleans up her mess, and trudges back up to the spare bedroom where she pulls out a pair of cotton shorts and a ratty old t-shirt to sleep in.

She's out seconds after her head hits the pillow.

~X~

"Ellie? You awake?"

Something soft pokes her in the cheek.

"Ellie?"

Swatting blindly at whatever's poking her Eloise somehow manages to connect with warm, supple leather and a lean frame.

"That hurt Ellie."

The bed dips beside her as Damon, because now that she's awake she can recognize the voice, drops onto the bed and curls around Eloise's body. It's nice, Eloise likes cuddling, so she shifts around so Damon is forced to wrap his arms around her to keep from being pushed off the bed and tucks her head under his chin. He smells like Old Spice and a woman's perfume.

"What time is it?"

"Ten-thirty, give or take, I figured you'd probably want something to eat before I introduce you to the mystery gang." Damon replies, fingers already working to very gently untangle the mess of Eloise's hair.

"That's surprisingly sweet of you."

"I can be a surprisingly sweet guy."

Eloise hums softly but doesn't move to get out of bed despite knowing it's well past time she did. Getting up now would give her time to eat a healthy breakfast and talk to Damon about everything that's been going on in Mystic Falls before she has to meet with the doppelganger and the rest of the people who will be popping in and out of Eloise's life for the next couple of weeks.

But her bed's so damn comfy and Damon's warm.

"Alright," Damon grunts, "come on."

Suddenly she's being pulled into Damon's arms and lifted up into the air, tossed over his shoulder like some sort of life-sized-rag-doll. It earns the raven haired vampire a light swat to the lower back which doesn't seem to do anything but amuse him, much to Eloise's chagrin. She's too tired to fight him off though and so she allows the older man to cart her into the kitchen where he drops her into a stool in front of the island.

Eloise crosses her arms on the counter top and drops her head into the cradle she's created.

"What do you want, Ellie?"

"To die."

"You know, considering what we're up against that might happen."

"A pancake!" Eloise moans, trying not to think about her upcoming graphic murder. "Just make me blueberry pancakes."

"Blueberry pancakes coming right up, princess."

The next few minutes are full of Damon shuffling around the kitchen while he gathers all of the necessary items to support Eloise's unhealthy obsession with various pancakes. She'd have ordered crepes if she was confident Damon would be able to make them properly but... Well, Damon's good at a great many things - emotional support being one of them - but he's lacking in the crepe making department.

While Damon makes breakfast Eloise shuffles over to the coffee machine to pour herself a big ole cup of inky goodness.

She drops an ice cube into her coffee because she's not a savage, ok? She's perfectly content not burning her tongue to hell and back. Damon doesn't seem to agree, however, because he raises an eyebrow at her and shakes his head like he's ashamed of her. Which is ridiculous. Eloise is perfect.

"And a shit ton of blueberry pancakes for the pretty brunette with the big eyes. Eat up buttercup." Damon commands as he places a plate in front of Eloise.

Eloise digs in after flipping the older man off.

The taste of absolutely way too much syrup and the equally sweet tang of blueberries explodes on Eloise's tongue, causing the young witch to moan in absolute delight. Swallowing so as not to look like a complete heathen in the next couple of second Eloise levels Damon with a look.

"Marry me and I will be the best fucking witchy wife you've ever had. All you'll ever have to do is supply me with coffee and blueberry pancakes... And strawberry crepes on my birthday... Or, you know, whenever."

"I've never actually learned to make crepes, you know." Damon remarks.

"Never mind, you're a damn heathen." Eloise jabs her fork in the vampire's direction to emphasize a point. "Where's the other brother? You know, veggie vamp? The pretty boy?"

"Stuck in the tomb with Katherine."

"Well, that's unfortunate."

Eloise got a call a few months back just raging over the fact that Katherine - the woman Damon loved, the woman Damon died for, the woman who turned him - was not actually desiccating in the Tomb and was, in fact, prancing around being a back stabbing bitch while Damon pined after her for the better part of his immortal life. Now, this hadn't been news to Eloise at the time as she'd sold enough magic to people who knew Katherine but... Well, she hadn't known how to tell Damon at the time. When she'd said as much to him after he'd bled his heart out the older vampire hadn't talked to Eloise for an entire two weeks before he'd shown up on her doorstep one night and they'd got piss roaring drunk in her living room.

Damon cried, it was very touching.

"Yeah... Think you could, uh, you know? Get him out?"

"Have you met me? The real question is do you want him let out of that tomb?" Eloise asks.

She has not personal connection to Stefan, no loyalty to him either. If she's being frank Eloise's loyalty lies in Miranda and Damon. They're the only people Eloise has ever really been able to trust as they've never used her for their own agendas without telling her and have never stabbed her in the back. Loyalty breeds loyalty and all that.

If Damon doesn't want Eloise to get Stefan out of the tomb then she won't... Even if it doesn't really sit well with Eloise's own morals.

Before Damon can answer the cell phone on the counter goes off, a short series of beeps shattering the quiet calm of the kitchen before Damon can answer.

Eloise turns her attention back to her now soggy pancakes and continues eating while Damon talks to some witch - probably the Bennett witch - about locking the doppleganger up in her house. Which is, admittedly, a really good idea considering what she tried to do the night before.

"Get dressed, we're going on a field trip." Damon commands after he's hung up and shoved his phone in his pocket.

With a two fingered salute Eloise jumps off the stool, makes her way to her room, and sifts through her suitcase. She ends up pulling out a light weight black knit crop top, a pair of dark wash high waist jeans, and a pair of ankle boots. Comfortable, yet, she'll look hot as hell. Perfect combination. Slipping into the bathroom Eloise changes before brushing her teeth and throwing her hair up into a bun.

Damon's waiting for her when she come trotting down the stairs. He's got a duffel bag in one hand and a travel cup of coffee in the other. Eloise smiles as she takes it from him.

They leave pretty quickly after that. Loading up into Damon's car and heading to the tomb where Eloise waits in the car so that Katherine doesn't find out about her, that way she can't do something stupid like sell Eloise out in exchange for her freedom. It's cute that Damon can work himself up enough to come up with something like that considering Katherine probably already knows about her... Eloise still takes the opportunity to flip through Damon's tunes and replace the crappy ones with some of her own.

He'll thank her later.

Totally.

Eloise is in the middle of a wicked air drum solo when Damon slides back into the car and tosses a water bottle full of blood onto the floor at Eloise's feet.

"Uh, Damon, real suede." a pointed look at her absolutely adorable taupe booties. "If that shit leaks you're buying me a pair of Louboutins."

"Yeah, yeah, you ready to meet dopplelicious?"

"Totally! We can bond over what a jerk you are."

She thinks she catches Damon muttering words like bloodthirsty and savages and fashion but ignores it in favor of watching the roads they take to get to the doppleganger's house. It's a pretty straightforward route and the girl's house is pretty standard, or, it would be if it wasn't for the slight sizzle of magic surging across Eloise's skin as she steps out of the car.

A quick glance up and down the street is the only precaution Eloise takes before trotting after Damon, who's left her standing on the front lawn like an idiot while he opens up the front door.

"At least give me two points for ingenuity." She hears Damon say as she steps into the house and pulls the door shut behind her.

"Do you think this is funny?"

"Yeah, Elena, I find hilarity in the lengths that I have to go to to repeatedly save your life."

Deciding to give the two a minute Eloise begins the lovely task of snooping through the doppleganger's house to make sure there isn't anything nasty that the other witch might have missed. She doubts there is but she knows a witch who likes to mess with people's heads by cursing their microwaves. Eloise has also been known to use a lovely little spell that allows her to spy on people through their mirrors.

Ok, look, it sounds really bad but Eloise had good fucking reason for doing it and while some of the stuff she's seen through the mirrors are absolutely disgusting she's managed to save her ass once or twice by doing it.

And maybe now she can save Elena or the rest of her family.

With a sigh Eloise sticks her index finger in her mouth, steps up to a hallway mirror, pops her finger out of her mouth, and then proceeds to trace her saliva slick finger around the edge where the glass meets the frame. She pours her objective into the spell and the slight shimmer of the mirror before it settles is the only thing that tells Eloise her spell worked.

She proceeds to do it in every single room of the house.

Because she's thorough.

Smiling, Eloise makes her way to the living room where Damon is mocking the doppleganger, the doppleganger is glaring at Damon, and a boy whom Eloise believes to be Jeremy merely uses his sister's lap as a pillow. The two humans jump when they notice her.

"Oh, right, forgot about you." Damon rolls his eyes and Eloise can't help but think that he is such a raging dick. "Doppleganger, human, this is the best witch... Best witch, this is the doppleganger and her brother."

Eloise raises a hand to wave and says, "Pleasure to meet you."

Damon snorts before grabbing her raised hand and dragging her from the house. Once they're out in the yard and close enough to the car that neither of the human occupants of the house will be able to hear them Damon turns to her.

"You do anything productive?" He snips as he holds open the door.

"I mean, I kind of hope that Elena doesn't do anything immoral anywhere with a mirror in the room." Eloise makes sure to pull her compact mirror - it's covered in blue crystals and looks like a sea shell - out of her purse to wave in Damon's face.

He just winks at her and says, "Always found it fun to take risks."

"You're a pig." Eloise groans.

"Hope you're hungry pretty lady."

"My stomach is a ravenous pit that can never be satisfied."

"Good, cause we're meeting a friend at the Grill."

Eloise sighs, she knew what she was getting into when she came to help Damon but... Meeting all of these people in one day and not actually interacting is exhausting.

"You're paying."

"Excuse me?"

"Hey, I'm the one that had to pay to fill my gas guzzler. You can fork out a twenty for a burger and fries."

Beside her Damon huffs out a breath and shakes his head before turning onto the main road and heading into town.

~X~

Alaric Saltzman seems to be the only one actually expecting Eloise aside from Damon. When the dark haired vampire introduces Eloise in typical Damon fashion Alaric just offers up a polite smile and shakes her hand before thanking her for coming.

Eloise finds that she rather likes Alaric "Call me Ric." Saltzman.

She likes him very much.

But she also likes Matt, the boy who isn't actually friends with Damon but likes Ric and serves her her burger with a giant grin and a wink. If she weren't, you know, able to drink legally Eloise might have been tempted to get to know Matt in a more personal way. But alas, it isn't going to happen. Eloise consuls herself by devouring her burger and scarfing down her fries.

It isn't until a pretty woman with tanned skin walks into the Grill that Eloise really starts paying attention.

"Where is Mason anyway?" Ric asks.

"Decomposing in his truck."

Ok, gross, but not gross enough to discourage her from finishing her smoothie.

"So you think she's a werewolf?"

"Well, I hope not being that it's a full moon and all Ric." Damon hisses.

"She's a werewolf." Eloise confirms.

"Are your spidey senses tingling?" Damon asked, wide eyes full of mockery.

Eloise rolls her eyes but doesn't give him a response.

Damon doesn't seem bothered, he just reaches into his pocket and shakes a bag of wolfsbane at Ric.

"Well, we'd better be sure."

"What is that?" Ric asks and he sounds mildly put out.

"Wolfsbane."

What happens next is like a giant train wreck happening in slow motion. Eloise isn't sure why Damon didn't just take her word for it but she watches passively as shit gets ready to hit the fan.

Ric waltzes up to the werewolf, plays the perfect drunk, and when the pretty lady starts getting uncomfortable Damon shows up to rescue the fair maiden. He's good at that, actually, rescuing people. Eloise thinks it's one of the reasons they click so well... Still doesn't mean she's really ok with what Damon's about to do to that woman. And as she watches Ric stir in the wolfsbane Eloise determine's to let Damon dig himself out of his own grave.

She knows that if anything bad actually happens she'll be the first one to step up to defend Damon but it's still a nice thought to let him scramble.

Eloise isn't sure how long she sits there but she and Ric have a lovely conversation about world history and a couple of drinks. The witch goes to dig around in her purse for a couple of bills to tip Matt with when she catches sight of her compact mirror. It's shaking slightly, not enough to be noticeable but enough. Eloise is quick to excuse herself and run to the bathroom.

Locking the bathroom door Eloise digs out her compact, flips it open, and swallows harshly when she sees a tall man with dark hair interacting with the doppleganger.

"Klaus' obsessions have made him paranoid, he's a recluse, he trusts only those in his immediate circle."

Eloise snaps the compact closed and books it out to the main part of the restaurant to where Ric is sitting.

"I need you keys. _Now_." Eloise snaps even though she's already snatching them out of his coat pocket. "Catch a ride with Damon, I have to be somewhere."

Before the man can reply Eloise is walking for the front door and Ric can't rush after her because it could cause a scene and he may be forced to leave Damon alone with the werewolf. Eloise trusts Ric to protect Damon. So she doesn't even spare him a backward glance as she slips out of the bar and into the crisp night air.


	3. Chapter 3

She doesn't head for the Gilbert household.

It's an obvious thing to do; go blindly into danger to rescue the fair maiden and slay the dragon. While Eloise is far from hesitant to go '07 Britney on an original vampire there's really no reason for her to act stupidly and throw herself into a situation that might not really be a situation at all. It's not like the original in Elena's room is going to hurt her.

Elena Gilbert would have been dead long before Eloise even noticed if that were the case.

Unfortunately, Elena Gilbert has a tendency to do stupid things like sacrifice herself and if the original vampire is talking to her then he's aware of that too. Which means he's probably there to make some sort of a deal, and that's why Eloise has her compact mirror propped up on the dash so she can listen in on their conversation.

Pretty boy original seems noble enough... Even if his hair cut is absolutely terrible.

Eloise smirks as she guides her car to a stop not all that far from the Fell Church where the tomb's hidden.

Just because she doesn't think the original's going to hurt Elena don't mean Eloise can't mess with him a bit. It'll be interesting to see how he reacts to the fact that a single witch, a young one at that, beat however many witches he has. Because he has them, he told Elena as much, and Eloise has always found a certain kind of satisfaction in causing a little mischief.

Whistling as she steps out of the car Eloise grabs her purse and makes her way into the tomb.

_Damon's going to kick my ass_, Eloise thinks as she begins descending the old stone steps leading down into the darkness.

She makes it to the antechamber first and a single spell is all she needs to bring warm golden light to the room. It enables her to catch a glimpse of the heady stone slab that acted as a door to seal up the tomb once upon a time. Eloise rolls her eyes and curls her lips at the stone. This is why she hates most witches, always willing to crawl over someone else just for being different.

Stepping closer to the entrance of the tomb Eloise clears her throat.

"Stefan? It's Eloise, Damon's friend."

Not seconds later a long legged brunette that looks way too much like Elena appears before her. Katherine. The other doppleganger. And right behind her is Stefan, looking wide eyed and mildly shocked.

"Evening, Stefan, ready to go?" Eloise asks as she moves closer to the tomb's entrance.

"What are you doing here?" Stefan demands though he sounds a bit too suspicious for his own good.

"Giving a rather attractive original vampire a rather unattractive headache."

Eloise doesn't miss the way Katherine's eyes go wide for a brief second before narrowing into dangerous slits. For a brief moment Eloise toys with the thought of letting the woman out of the tomb as well but quickly scraps that idea. After all, she needs someone to stay behind and deliver her message to the original.

Smiling widely, if not a bit cruelly, Eloise steps closer to the barrier and raises both hands to about eye level.

Stefan shifts back, Katherine shifts forward, and Eloise closes her eyes to minimize any visual distractions the two might offer as she begins chanting lowly under her breath. Channeling the full moon is easy and the surge of power that follows is a heady thing, something Eloise will never tire of no matter how long she lives. And luckily, her magic is more powerful then the magic layered over the tomb.

With careful focus Eloise pulls away layer upon layer of the spell until there's nothing keeping Stefan inside.

She opens her eyes and smiles as Stefan.

When Katherine tries to dart past her Eloise merely holds up a hand, pinning the older vampire in place without so much as a thought.

"Sorry Katherine. I need you to stay put for just a while longer." Eloise says and the resounding crack of Katherine's neck snapping like a twig echos through the tomb as the witch snaps her fingers.

"What are you doing?" Stefan asks as Eloise crouches next to the body and drags it back into the tomb.

Eloise ignores him in favor of pulling a pen and a slip of paper out of her purse, scribbles down a quick little message, and tucks it into the strap of Katherine's dress. Knowing that the vampire won't wake for some time and that someone's probably coming Eloise turns and begins making her way up the stair.

"Are you coming, Stefan?"

"Are you just going to leave her there?"

Eloise pauses and looks at Stefan.

"Katherine and Elijah have history. He won't kill her."

_Not yet anyway_.

Stefan casts the unconscious vampire a glance before nodding and following after Eloise who smiles kindly and nudges his ribs with her elbow.

They've never met but Damon loves Stefan. Their relationship might be strained and turbulent but there's love there, buried under one hundred and sixty some years of bitterness and rage. So if Damon can find it in his heart to love Stefan then Eloise can find it in hers to try and love him too. Who knows. Maybe they can all be one big happy family at the end of this.

Her thoughts only seem to solidify after Stefan returns her smile with one of his own.

It's a nice smile, sad, but nice.

Neither of them speak as Eloise guides them to Ric's car, only breaking the silence when Eloise opens the driver side door.

"You want a ride to Elena's?" Eloise asks even as Stefan begins to shake his head. "Alright, well, don't tell anyone I let you out, yeah? Elijah was the one who was supposed to do it. Not me."

That seems to surprise Stefan but he nods none-the-less.

"Yeah, sure. Elijah came and got me... But why would he-"

"Better ask your girlfriend that one Stefan. I'm not entirely sure myself."

Lie, but he doesn't need to know that.

The two part ways pretty quickly after that and Eloise makes her way back to the boarding house with Ric's car wondering how Elijah's going to react to her little note? There weren't any reflective surfaces in the room so it's not like Eloise can spy on him when he finds Katherine's body. Oh well, she'll just have to wait until they meet in person it would seem.

A series of sharp rings makes Eloise jump but she quickly gets a grip and digs her phone out of her pocket.

"Hello, Damon." She says as she puts the call on speaker phone.

"Where the hell are you?" Damon growls.

"What's wrong?"

Any of the amusement she'd been feeling moments ago is gone. Replaced by a cool dread that makes Eloise swallow hard and grip the steering wheel a bit harder.

"You need to get to the house. A friend of mine just got bitten by the werewolf from the bar."

"Damon, I-"

"Just get here."

Damon hangs up not seconds later and Eloise sucks in a deep breath before pushing down on the gas a bit firmer to pick up the pace. She hopes that the person who got bit isn't any of the people Damon told her about. The ones he actually cares about but doesn't admit the does. It would wreck Damon if it were any of the people he actually, you know, doesn't hate.

Getting to the boarding house is hazy but racing up the steps and into the house is not.

Eloise tosses the keys on the side table before rushing to the living room where Damon and a woman with short hair are sitting on the couch. The woman's face is contorted with fear and her shoulder is brilliantly red, covered in terrible welts.

Without prompting Eloise makes her way over to the woman to examine her wound... Or lack there of.

"When did this happen?"

"Not long ago," the woman says, "an hour or so maybe?"

The skin is hot as Eloise brushes her fingers over it. Not a good sign. Of course, being bitten by a werewolf isn't ever a good thing for vampires but Eloise has never witnessed it first hand. Pulling away from the woman Eloise shakes her head.

"You probably won't survive this. I'm sorry but I've never heard of a vampire coming out of this alive... You have options though." Eloise says.

"Options?"

"Yeah... I can ease the pain and when the time comes it'll be like falling asleep. No pain, no suffering, just sleep." Eloise meets the woman's eyes and smiles as reassuringly as she can. "But if you don't want that I can take you're spirit and I can put it in another body. There's no way I can keep you alive as you are and I don't think you have a lot of time."

The woman swallows hard.

"Can I think about it?" She asks.

"Of course... I'm Eloise."

"Rose."

Nodding Eloise makes her way into the kitchen to shoot Miranda a text message asking her to send the instructions for the body possession spell. It doesn't take long for Miranda to shoot her a series of pictures and several inquires as to why she needs to the spell. Eloise just tells her it's for a friend. Miranda stops asking so many questions after that.

Knowing that Rose probably won't chose death Eloise begins gathering the herbs and other materials she'll need for the spell while she waits for a verbal confirmation.

She doesn't have to wait long, soon enough Rose and Damon enter the kitchen and Rose swallows thickly before looking Eloise dead in the eye.

"I want to live." Rose says.

Eloise nods before turning to Damon.

"You need to find a body, living or dead, that I can put Rose's spirit in... If you get a dead one make sure it's fresh."

Damon nods before disappearing from the house.

The young witch begins mixing her herbs into a bowl.

"Will it hurt?" Rose asks after a moment.

"Shouldn't. I've never actually done this spell before but I've heard of people using it so at least we know it works." Eloise says.

"Will I be human?" Rose asks.

"Yeah, I'd guess Damon's going to find you some random woman's body. Worst comes to worst we just change you afterward."

Eloise places the herbs aside and wipes her hand on her pants.

The herbs won't really be needed until Eloise prepares the host body and so she makes her way over to Rose so that she can place her hands on the woman's shoulders. Her magic floods the woman's body, chasing away the heat of fever and the pain. The venom is still racing through her system though and Eloise hopes Damon hurries up. They don't have all that much time.

~X~

When Damon returns he's got a body slung over his shoulder.

The fact that the woman isn't moving in any way tells Eloise that she's very, very dead.

Eloise doesn't care, she just cleans off the kitchen island and tells Damon to place the body on the flat surface. When he does she takes a moment to look at the woman. She's younger then Rose, or looks it anyway, with wild brown hair and a cute button nose. Pretty. Eloise takes a deep breath before snatching the herbs off of a stool so she can sprinkle them over the dead woman's body.

Once that's done Eloise puts both her hands on the woman. One on the forehead and the other on the stomach. She finds that physical contact helps her focus her magic sometimes and right now Eloise needs all the focus she can get.

"Carama sae au." Eloise breathes as she leans down so that her breath whispers against still warm lips.

The flickering of light and the sudden tension in the air signals to Eloise that the spell worked.

"You're turn." Eloise locks eyes with Rose as she speaks and makes her way around the island to grab the older woman's hands.

Rose sucks in a deep, rattling breath before she closes her own feverish eyes.

Eloise casts a glance at Damon, notes the fear hidden behind his cool countenance, and steels her nerves.

_Do it for Damon_, she tells herself, _just do it for him_.

Pulling on her magic Eloise steps closer to Rose and rests their foreheads together. Not necessary for the spell, yeah, but the contact offers Eloise a bit of comfort and she hopes it helps Rose in the same way.

"Phasmatos Tribum. Nas Ex Veras. Raverus En Phasmatos Ex Sonos." The magic that surges through Eloise's veins is heady and familiar, comforting like an old blanket pulled fresh out of the drier on a cold day. Eloise falls into the embrace of it and continues chanting. "Resistamus Et Veram Vatus. Raverus Phasmatos Ex Sonos."

Around the room light bulbs begin to explode.

Rose suddenly goes limp in her arms, body crumpling like a sack of leaves.

Eloise allows the woman to slip out of her grasp as she takes deep, cleansing breaths.

"What was that?" Damon asks.

"Most witches would call that dark magic." Eloise mutters as she goes to check on the body spread out on the island.

She presses her fingers into the woman's neck and finds a pulse fluttering rapidly against her fingers. Sighing, Eloise moves to brush back the wild tangle of hair.

"Rose? Can you hear me? I need you to wake up now." Eloise tells the other woman, voice firm.

Moments pass before wide green eyes flicker open and land on Eloise.

"How do you feel?" Eloise asks.

Rose just bursts into violent sobs, shaking and curling in on herself even as Damon comes to hold her. She clings to him and stutters out that she didn't think it was going to work, that she thought she was going to die. Eloise can't bring it in herself to tell the woman that as she's currently human dying's still a very big possibility. Instead she just cleans up her mess and goes to the living room to pour herself a drink.

She's on to her second glass when Damon appears before her and pulls her into a tight hug.

Neither of them say anything as Eloise wraps her arms around Damon's ribs but she can feel dampness on her skin where Damon's buried his face in her neck. Eloise lets him cry it out, stroking his hair and rubbing his back to help sooth him.

Eventually he pulls away to blink at her.

"Rose is crashing in one of the guest rooms." Damon says.

"I'd give her some time before you start talking about the transition." Eloise replies to which Damon nods.

Glancing down at the bourbon in her glass Eloise swallows the lump forming in her throat.

She's not a good person. She's done some pretty bad shit to too many people to be classified as a good person but... She's never hurt anyone that didn't deserve it. Saving Rose isn't something Eloise regrets, far from it in fact, but she also isn't sure how she feels about taking someone's life away from them either. Especially when the body Rose is now inhabiting is so young looking.

Maybe not younger then Eloise but still younger the Rose's original body looked.

"Who'd you kill, Damon?" Eloise finally asks, because she needs this.

Closure, the reassurance that she didn't do anything wrong, call it what you want. Eloise needs it.

"I don't know. Teenage runaway. She had a bag with her."

"Homeless?"

"Probably."

Eloise nods before curling back into Damon's embrace.

He presses a lingering kiss to her forehead.

"Thank you, Ellie."

"Of course, Damon, anything for you."

Damon's thumb is rough as he brushes it across her cheek but Eloise doesn't mind. She's just glad that the sorrow, the guilt, that had been lingering in Damon's eyes when she got to the house is gone. Replaced with something gentle and hesitant. Eloise smiles as she moves to kiss his cheek.

"I'm going to bed Damon but if you or Rose need anything don't hesitate to wake me up ok? Especially if it's an emergency."

Instead of answering Damon just nods, takes her half finished drink, and disappears from the room.

~X~

"Eloise," Rose greets the next morning when the dark haired witch shuffles into the kitchen, "good morning!"

Rose and Elena are sitting at the island and they both offer smiles as Eloise steps closer. While the ex-soon-to-be vampires grins delightfully at her, Elena looks like she's a little bit afraid. Like Eloise is something dangerous and wild and she's finally realizing that.

Eloise ignores it in favor of pouring herself a cup of coffee.

"Good morning Rose, Elena." She turns to Rose, "How did you sleep?"

"I slept well enough considering..." The dark haired woman motions to her body.

Now that she's not focusing on saving Rose's life Eloise allows herself to appraise the new body. It's a petite thing, naturally small and dainty, Rose's head barely comes to Eloise's chin but it doesn't stop the woman from looking imposing. It's something about the eyes, big and sharp. Eloise smiles because despite everything this body fits Rose in a way Eloise hadn't expected it to.

"Good. Have you spoken to Damon about turning?"

Is it any of her business? Probably not. But if Rose wants to be a vampire again then she's going to need a daylight ring and Eloise doesn't just keep those on hand considering they're so important to vampires. Look, she needs to make money ok? Besides, not all vampires deserve daylight rings. Why would she just keep one in her pocket for just _any_ vampire?

Across the island Rose tucks a chunk of long, dark hair behind her ear and nods.

"Yes, we've spoken. I believe he'll be back tonight to help with, well, everything I suppose."

"I'll shoot him a text then and ask him to pick up something to make a daylight ring with," Eloise goes to pull her phone out of her pajama pocket. "Do you have any jewelry preferences?"

Rose looks startled, as if she hadn't thought Eloise was going to get her a daylight ring. Which is kind of dumb considering the fact that Eloise just saved her life by shoving her spirit into a new body but whatever.

"I don't have any preferences." Rose breathes.

Eloise nods before shooting Damon a text asking for something to make the daylight jewelry out of. She thinks a necklace or maybe a bracelet would be best considering she doesn't know Rose's new ring size but it's completely up to Damon. Knowing him, he's already gotten her something.

Shoving her phone back in her pocket as she takes a sip of coffee Eloise glances at Elena.

"Babysitting duty?" She asks.

The brunette nods, "Yeah. Damon and Stefan thought it would be best if we all hung out."

"You mean to make sure Rose doesn't pop out of this body and something bad happen to me." Eloise corrects which makes Elena smile a little bashfully.

"Something like that."

Eloise nods.

"Well, we might as well make the most of it I suppose."

"What do you suggest?" Rose asks.

"Breakfast. I'm starving. Then maybe we can do fun things with magic." Eloise places her coffee cup on the island.

"Like what?"

"How would you like to go pink for a day, Elena?" Eloise asks as she reaches out to play with the other girl's silky brunette hair.

Doe eyes widen to impossibly innocent measures as Elena comprehends what Eloise has just said to her.

"You can do that?" Elena seems so surprised that Eloise can't even bring herself to be annoyed.

"Oh sugar, I can do a lot of cool witchy things."

Changing someone's hair color is child's play. All the spell really needs is intent and focus, there's not even an incantation. How is it that Bonnie's never done anything like this to her? It would be so much easier to hide Elena from people if they changed her hair color or something. Hair is such a distinct feature for people. Turning it blonde or red would make her blend into crowds a bit more.

How is it that the Bennett witch never thought of this?

Does she not know? Did no one teach her these things?

Hell, Eloise is mostly self taught herself but there had been more then a few spells that she'd been able to pick up from other witches even if just in passing.

_Maybe it's because she doesn't live the same life style as I do_, Eloise sips at her coffee as she thinks it over._ Maybe not being truly on her own has given her a different experience_.

Swallowing her mouthful of coffee Eloise adjusts her grip on her mug and turns to the two woman sitting at the island.

"I'm thinking crepes." Eloise says.

"Sounds lovely," Rose stretches her arms above her head, revealing a really pretty flower tattoo splayed across her inner bicep. "You making them?"

"Of course... And unlike Damon I won't give you food poisoning."

This prompts a loud snort from Elena that makes the other two women smile wickedly at one another.

Eloise turns to the cupboards.

"Now Elena, tell me about yourself." She commands.

And while she's making breakfast the pretty brunette tells her about her parents, her aunt, her brother, high school and friends, her likes and dislikes. She seems so incredibly human, so incredibly normal in this moment that Eloise's heart goes out to her. Because no matter how normal she seems in this moment Elena Gilbert will never live a life devoid of the supernatural. And honestly? That kind of sucks for her.


	4. Chapter 4

The boy that slides into the booth across from her own isn't familiar to Eloise. He's thin-framed and covered in toned muscle, there's a bit of scruff growing at his chin that's not much longer than the hair covering the top of his head, his complexion is nice- Eloise honestly can't find a single blemish and what is it with that? She'd been an acne riddled fool at sixteen- but his eyes are the first thing a person would probably notice if they looked at him. All-in-all, the boy is cute but way too young to be sitting at a table wit a twenty-two year old art major when he should be at school. If it weren't for the witchy-ness swirling around him Eloise might have been fool enough to think he's trying to get lucky.

Eloise sips at her coffee and raises a dark eyebrow at the boy who smiles so disarmingly at her.

"Hi, I'm Luka Martin." He says, offering his hand across the table.

"Eloise."

"Just Eloise?"

Tension rolls through her as Eloise squeezes the hand in her grasp a bit tighter before pulling away with a, "Just Eloise."

Luka's smile is a bit hesitant before he seems to shake off the feeling. Eloise watches as he moves to recline back in his seat, arms spread out over the back of the booth, head tipped to the side a bit, she wonders if he's trying to come off as nonchalant and charming in the hopes of getting something from her. Eloise knows better than to fall for such cheap tricks. Points for trying, though. Eloise doubts he came here of his own free will so at this point it's only a matter of figuring out who sent him- her options aren't good but some are certainly more manageable than others.

"So, is there a reason you're here?" Eloise asks before shoving a few fries in her mouth.

"I'm just trying to offer some company to the pretty girl sitting in the back booth."

"Seems a bit more suspicious than saying you were interested in talking to another witch."

There's a moment where Luka's aloof expression freezes on his face, a sort of tension bleeding in around the edges before he covers it. Eloise wonders why he was sent as opposed to someone older and more experienced. Luka's a kid, Eloise knows she has no room to talk as she's not much older than he is but at least she's old enough to drink legally. The boy sitting in front of her can't be much older than seventeen maybe? A little older? Eloise doesn't do good with ages but she can tell he's not older than twenty as matured witches tend to have a certain air about them. It only gets more noticeable the older they get and Luka's aura isn't exactly all that intense.

"Of course, that's probably not a good idea. I could have been a normie... Do you even know how to tell a witch from a human?" She finds herself asking.

It seems to offend him because Luka puffs up and says, "Of course I can!"

"Uh-huh. Right. Want to explain why you're here instead of at school then?" Eloise asks, in part because she wants to antagonize him and in part because she's genuinely curious.

"I was the only one available to come and talk to you."

The taste of cheap coffee lingers on Eloise's tongue as she puts down her mug. It was bound to happen sooner or later she supposes, one of Elijah Mikaelson's witch contacts was bound to seek her out eventually if the vampire didn't do it himself. Eloise is a little surprised none of them came looking for her sooner but they might have just figured they'd try and talk to her without anyone around to bother them. With Elena and her friends at school and Damon taking care of Rose's turning now seems as good a time as any. Smiling brightly, Eloise drums her fingers on the tabletop and watches Luka as he digs around in his pocket.

When he finally holds up a scrap of paper with her familiar scrawl covering the front Eloise can't help but snort.

"Seems a bit ridiculous for an Original Vampire to send someone else to do his negotiating." Eloise remarks as she plucks the paper out of his grasp to crumple it up in her own.

Negotiating isn't exactly the term Eloise would use for it, however. Making a deal with Elijah Mikaelson isn't something Eloise wants to do- for obvious reasons- but it's not like she doesn't want to talk to the original vampire. Knowing what little she does about the Original family puts her in a bad spot; without information she can't very well protect any of her friends, and yet, despite this she might be in more danger when she actually has information of the various Mikaelsons. It's a bit of a precarious situation but Eloise isn't exactly a stranger to those. If anything, handling precarious situations is the one thing she's good at.

"Negotiating? Naw, he's more interest in talking." Luka says.

"His words or yours?" Eloise asks as she wraps her hands around the ceramic mug.

Luka shrugs and says, "Elijah just wants to talk from what I was told. I haven't really talked to the Big Bad so I can't speak for him, but I've talked to my dad and he definitely wants to meet you."

"I'm not entirely sure I trust you," Eloise says, "I haven't heard a lot about the Mikaelsons but what I have heard isn't exactly sunshine and rainbows."

"That's fair." Luka rubs the back of his neck like he's trying to drive out tension, "Elijah's ok though. I think he's the more rational of the bunch but I've only really just met him so what do I know, right?"

Biting the inside of her lip Eloise wonders if maybe she should have told Damon or Miranda about her little plan to meet up with and talk to Elijah. She's not planning on angering the man, she's not stupid, but it might have been a good idea to have someone in the know should things go pear shaped. They would have tried to talk her out of it though and Eloise isn't going to pass this opportunity up. If things go well Eloise might be able to get something out of Elijah that could help her keep Damon and her people safe. Besides, it's always better to know who you're dealing with. Telling either of them is out of the question at this point too. Miranda would haul ass to Mystic Falls and Damon would probably lock her in the basement if he didn't insist on going with her.

Eloise glances around the Grill to see if she recognizes anyone; she doesn't.

Slowly, Eloise digs through her purse until she comes up with a small notepad and a pen. She flips to a clean page on the note pad before putting it on the table so she can scribble out a note for Elijah which she promptly rips out and hands to Luka.

"It's my phone number, tell Elijah to text me when he gets a chance." Eloise says.

Luka stares at the page for a moment before nodding and shoving the note in his pocket.

"He'll be in touch." the younger witch says as he begins sliding out of the booth.

She nods to show him that she heard but doesn't say anything to him aside from that and she waits until Luka has disappeared through the front door to call a waiter over so she can get her ticket. After finishing off her coffee so she can slip a generous tip under the mug Eloise leaves the Grill and makes her way over to her car while digging around in her purse for her keys. All in all, it hadn't been an unpleasant visit considering who Luka is to Elijah and what he could have been instructed to do to her. Eloise thinks she's going to have to figure out a game plan pretty quickly though. Going in blind isn't going to keep her alive and that's all Eloise is trying to do. Keep herself and Damon alive.

Heartless though it may sound, Elena Gilbert is not her priority. Jeremy Gilbert. Bonnie Bennett and Caroline Forbes and Stefan and the rest of the people living in this supernatural hot spot of a town are not her priority, nor should they be. Eloise has no emotional attachment to anyone in this town outside of Damon and should it come down to him or Elena? Well, Eloise will do what she can for Elena because Damon loves her but the fact of the matter is that Damon is the one Eloise is going to chose should she have to decide which one she's going to save. Unfortunately, she knows that Damon's caught feelings for the doppelganger and will do anything he has to do to keep her safe, which is why Eloise has to talk to Elijah and figure out why Klaus needs her for the curse _exactly_ so that she can plan ahead from there.

Being a bad bitch is hard work, obviously, but being a sneaky little witch bitch is even tougher.

Eloise thumps the back of her head against the headrest of her seat before digging her phone out of her pocket to call Miranda.

Her roommate picks up on the third ring with a chipper cry of, "Well if it isn't my favorite witch!"

"Hello, Miranda. I hope everything's going well?"

"Your shop is thriving, I'm living my best life, and I just sold a truly delightful seventeen year old a couple of amethyst pillars. But you aren't calling to ask me about the store- I'd be a little offended if you were TBH- so what do you want?"

"I need you to dig up whatever you can on the Mikaelson family."

There's silence for a long moment before Miranda says, "What are you getting yourself into, Eloise?"

"Nothing too serious yet." She glances out the car window toward the street. "I just need as much information as I can get on them before I do or say something that gets my head lopped off."

"Jesus Christ."

"Look, can you do this for me or not?"

"Yeah, yeah, uh, I'll do some digging."

"Thank you." Eloise says to the other girl.

"Just be careful. I'm serious, Eloise. If it comes down to you or that fucking backwater town you say "Sayonara baby." and get the fuck out." Miranda's voice is waspish. Harsh and full of distant fear.

Eloise hates doing this to Miranda, it doesn't sit well that she's making her friend worry as much as she is, and she finds herself nodding and promising, "I'll be on the first flight home before I can even say it. Promise."

"Ok."

"Miranda?"

"What?"

"You're a good friend."

The redhead scoffs and says, "Of course I am." before the line goes dead.

Shaking her head, Eloise starts up her car before backing out of the parking space. She ambles through Mystic Falls, takine a look at all the town has to offer and deciding that it's actually a really cute place to live before she gets board and goes off in search of something fun to do, which eventually leads her back to the boarding house because she has no friends here aside from Damon, who's busy, and she honestly doesn't think Mystic Falls has fun things to do. Richmond is always an option but Eloise would rather stab herself in the knee than drive anymore than she has in the past few days. Sighing, Eloise pulls her car into her chosen spot and parks.

After scanning the house to make sure no one is home Eloise gathers some supplies and makes her way down to the basement where there cells are. It's spooky as hell and Eloise makes sure all of the cells are empty before picking own for her own use and promptly arranging it to suit her needs. Candles are set up, a throw rug is tossed onto the ground where she'll likely end up sitting or kneeling, ingredients and tools get put in their places, and her grimoires end up carefully stacked on the seat of the folding chair she'd dragged down so at not to stain or damage them with anything that might be scattered about the floor- it's mostly just a little dust from what Eloise can see but she's not taking chances with grimoires that are a hundred plus years old. While the space isn't a proper work-space it's private and that's all she needs. She can also spell it to keep people out of her business when she's not around to protect it. Much easier than trying to ward her room or something. Besides, there's less distraction in the creepy basement cell than there is in the rest of the house.

Sighing, Eloise lights a few of the candles and closes her eyes.

"Sisters, brothers, friends on the other side," she whispers to the shadows dancing in the corners of the room, "I call upon you in search of wisdom and advice. Speak to me, your wayward sister, so that I may find my way."

To make something very, very clear: Eloise is not all that close with the spirits, she's not a follower of ancestral magic, and she sure as shit isn't going to let some bitchy spirit with a bone to pick tell her how to use her magic but Miranda doesn't like communing with spirits. It's something she just won't do under any circumstances, which means that all of the information she's going to be able to get on Klaus or any of the other Mikaelsons is going to be current information and while that's certainly helpful it's nice to have as much information as one can get when dealing with homicidal maniacs. Eloise releases a deep breath and centers herself.

"I call to those willing to speak to me about the Mikaelsons- friends, lovers, enemies- so that I can gain wisdom from your insight."

Something moves in the shadows behind her. Eloise can't see it but she knows that something has entered the room with her. Nothing that has violent intentions, but something definitely willing to talk. She opens her eyes to find a young woman with large dark eyes and inky hair staring at her. The woman is unfamiliar to her and dressed in a long linen shift of rusty coloring with a brown woolen apron-like dress over top, there's a necklace of brightly colored beads dangling around her neck as well. She's beautiful, and powerful, and Eloise wonders how long she's been waiting to have come so quickly.

"Hello," she greets as steadily as her sudden tension allows, "my name is Eloise."

"Yes, I know, the little witch asking questions she should not."

"But you came. So is there anything you wanted to tell me about? There must be something, you came to me so quickly."

The woman sitting across from her frowns, glances around, and finally says, "I was alive when they were, I saw their humanity and I was there when it was taken from them."

"Taken?"

"Yes, by a woman I once considered a friend."

Eloise licks her bottom lip in trepidation before reaching out to place her hand over that of the ghost woman's. Cold seeps into her skin, like she's dunked her hand into a bucket of ice water and left it too long, and it's uncomfortable but it's the only contact the two of them have before the spirit rips her hand away. They stare at one another for a long moment as the candle flames cast flickering shadows on the wall until eventually Eloise begins speaking, pleading, begging really.

"You were there when they were human? You know of their creation? Then please, tell me about the one who changed them! If there is anything you know that can help me protect me and mine I beg you to tell me of it."

There is hesitation in the witch-spirit's voice as she says, "It was a spell preformed out of desperation, dark magic that was paid for in blood and suffering. I warned her what her fear would breed, the price she would pay, but I was forced to turn my back on one whom I considered a dear friend... And then I was forced to watch as her spell bred a plague."

"Vampires."

"And an abomination much more foul; a hybrid."

"Klaus."

"Yes, Niklaus. He was a sweet boy when I knew him."

Eloise purses her lips and tries not to get snappy at the woman for being so blatantly judgy. Old-school witches, ones born before the invention of the internet and cellphones tend to be a bit too closed-minded for Eloise's liking. Especially when they spread their hate to younger generations that end up being brainwashed into thinking that anyone who isn't a witch isn't worth the dog shit clinging to the bottom of their shoes. Total bullshit considering witches are the root of all these so called abominations.

"What happened? What changed? Kind hearted people don't just stop being kind hearted after they've been changed. Doesn't the transition just highten emotions? Sure, the blood lust isn't exactly a good thing but that can be managed. So what turned him into the Boogeyman?" Eloise asks, careful to keep her voice curious as opposed to righteous.

"After he was cursed Niklaus killed a man and it became known that he was a product of infidelity. To appease her husband, my old friend bound Niklaus' werewolf side and as a result he grew angry, hateful."

Fair.

Eloise frowns as she says, "Then what happens when Klaus breaks the curse? If he does? What's his goal?"

"To create more hybrids."

She already assumed that would be a goal. Why wouldn't someone want to make more people just like them? Abandonment issues and self-worth probably have a lot to do with that but Eloise can't help but think that something doesn't add up. Before she can ask the woman sitting across from her anything else a door somewhere above her slams and a loud cry of her name splits the air and kills her concentration. Eloise swears loudly as the witch disappears as the flames hovering above her candles go out as if on an undetectable breeze. Annoyed, Eloise mutters a quick spell to make sure no one else has lingered or left any bad mojo behind before leaving her chosen cell-turned-work-space. She seals it shut as she goes because there's no way in hell she's letting Bonnie fucking Bennett get her hands on her grimoires. Witches may help witches, and Eloise may be cool with sharing her skills, but she knows that Bonnie hasn't exactly had a good history of borrowing things and giving them back- just as Damon.

Slowly, she makes her way up to the main floor of the house to find said vampire stomping around the living room.

"What's up?" She asks as she makes her way to the couch.

"Caroline is missing."

"Missing? Like, MIA?"

Damon shoots her a withering look before saying, "Can you do a spell to find her? I got a hold of Bonnie and I think I have an idea of where she might be but I want you to do your thing just to be sure."

Quickly shooing Damon off to get a map of Mystic Falls and something of Caroline's results in Eloise having a moment to contemplate if coming to Mystic Falls was a good idea or if she should have just been an over the phone consultant to Damon. It would have saved her a lot of trouble if she'd just stayed in Chicago. Huffing, Eloise makes her way to the kitchen where she'll do her locator spell so at not to ruin any of the wooden furniture in Damon's home. He should be thankful for that honestly, Eloise isn't nearly this considerate of other people's personal property. As demonstrated when she burns a picture of Caroline to a crisp so she can sprinkle the ashes over the map of Mystic Falls that Damon so kindly spread out of the counter. The ashes gather in a thick circle around some bit of forest that Damon seems to recognize because he has his phone to his ear and is out of the house before Eloise can spit out a hesitant location.

Yeah, staying in Chicago would have been way simpler.


	5. Chapter 5

Her first introduction to Andie Star is a short one. They say hi, Damon explains that Eloise is an old family friend, and Eloise tries not to make disgusted faces at Damon as he smooches on Andie before compelling her into falling madly in love with him. She seems nice, a tad more welcoming then Eloise might have thought considering how Damon's manipulated her into thinking their a real item. Eloise grits her teeth as the pretty news anchor smiles as she tells Eloise they're going to be great friends, that it was great meeting her, and that she'd love to meet up sometime before Damon pulls her away. The brunette doesn't stick around long after that, instead slipping off with her mug of coffee to the library where Damon has some weapon he wants her to vet.

She's got her hands over the dagger when Damon strolls in with Alaric. Neither of them care that mumbled Latin is pouring out of her mouth, more interested in talking about how some dude name John gave him the dagger. A large hand plucks the dagger off of the table and Eloise turns a poisonous look on Damon, who doesn't even bother to care as he begins explaining the use of the dagger.

"Said you have to dip the dagger in the remains of an old white ash tree that dates back to the Originals... If there's any truth in that."

Alaric takes the dagger from Damon and asks, "So you think it's a set up?"

"Could be. The guy's a weasel. Wouldn't put anything past him." Damon turns to her, "What do you think?"

"I think that you're an impatient asshole who deserves whatever happens when you use that dagger." Eloise remarks, tone waspish.

If Damon isn't going to let her do what she does best then why is she even here? What's the point of her doing magic if Damon's just going to prance willy-nilly into situations that could get him killed? There isn't. Eloise frowns as she leans back in her chair, eyebrow rising as Damon turns to give her a confused sort of kicked-puppy look that Eloise doesn't really appreciate.

"What are you up to today Mr. Saltzman?" Damon asks when it becomes clear Eloise isn't going to elaborate anymore.

"Jenna and I were supposed to go to her family's lake house but somehow we both got roped into doing this Historical Society thing at the Lockwoods." The history teacher says, passing back the dagger with a faint air of disinterest.

"Where Elijah's guest of honor."

"Tell me you're not going to kill him at the tea party." Alaric says.

Damon's face scrunches up as he turns away with a disgruntled, "No! That would be stupid."

"Because you've never done anything stupid before," Eloise scoffs while Alaric just stares at Damon through dead eyes.

"I resent that," he says to her before addressing his drinking buddy, "I want to know his endgame before I kill him. But I do think it's time Elijah and I officially met."

Running a hand through her hair Eloise turns to pluck the dagger out of Damon's hand before he accidentally takes someone's eye out. He might be able to heal lickety-split but Eloise and Alaric are fragile, squishy humans. There are like two zillion ways Eloise could die without adding Damon's unintentional stabbing of her person to the list. When the dagger is safely in her grasp Eloise rolls it back up in the soft canvas it came in before tucking it into a desk drawer. No reason to leave something like that lying around now is there?

"You do realize Elijah is an original vampire right?" Eloise asks.

"Yeah? And?"

"Well, think of it like this; vampires get stronger the older they are, yeah? Who's the oldest vampire you know?" when both men simply stare at her Eloise rolls her eyes, "Rose. Rose is the oldest vampire you know. And where is Rose? Hiding in this fucking house because she's afraid of Elijah."

"Do you have a point?" Damon asks.

"My point, you dick, is that Rose is stronger and faster than you by quite a bit, but even she isn't on par with the thousand-plus-year-old vampire currently playing human at the Lockwoods. What the fuck is wrong with you, Damon? Why do you think stabbing someone with a sketchy ass knife- which was given to you by someone you clearly don't trust, by the way- is a good idea?"

Blue eyes narrow as Damon says, "John wouldn't let anything happen to Elena."

"But you're way less important to him than she is, Damon! Jesus Christ! Get your head out of your ass for a minute and think this through! You don't even know if this dagger is going to work and what happens when it doesn't and Elijah takes you out? Of if he gets pissy because you went back on the deal Elena made with him and he decides to just take her? You aren't thinking ten steps ahead, you're flying by the seat of your pants!"

"What pissed in your cheerios today?" Damon growls to which Eloise rises so that she's face to face with the vampire.

"You did! I don't want to die because your go-to when dealing with a problem is killing people! Not everything has to be handled by stabbing people in the back! Literally, this time!"

Damon softens as he reaches out to tug gently on some of the hair that's fallen over her shoulder. It's something he's been doing since she was a punk teenager he'd met in a dingy ass restaurant and it's sweet but it also boils Eloise's potatoes. She bats his hand away from her and glares.

"There's also the shit you're pulling with Andie Star! What's that about? I thought you liked Rose?"

"Rose and I have an understanding but we're hardly exclusive. We fuck. Sometimes I fuck Andie. There's really nothing to explain." Damon says with a shrug.

"First of all, the sex you're having with Andie isn't consensual when you're compelling her to be cool with you being a vampire and you know where I stand with that. End it. Now." Eloise takes a breath. "Secondly, I don't really care what you and Rose have figured out but I just performed some pretty fucking heavy magic to bring her back because I thought she was your friend and now you're putting her in danger by toying with Elijah. I'm ok with this Damon and you need to realize that you're way of handling things doesn't work all of the time!"

Alaric coughs awkwardly from where he's standing off to the side before silently making his way from the library. Clearly, he doesn't want to be part of this conversation and that's perfectly fine with Eloise. He's in just as much trouble as Damon is right now considering he probably knew about Damon compelling Andie and didn't do anything about it. Which is a seriously dick move. Eloise isn't afraid of ripping Damon a new one, though, so at least Andie has someone in her corner.

"Eloise, butt out."

"Damon, fuck yourself. You know I don't like compulsion-sex and you literally paraded Andie around in front of me despite knowing I wouldn't like it, which is really offensive because I have put my life, my physical well being, and my future on the line to help you protect a complete stranger! And the worst part is, you won't even listen to me when I try to help!"

Hands wrap around her throat, not tight enough to really be painful but they're there and Eloise can feel the tension in Damon's fingers. Well, sucks to be him. Eloise snaps her hand up so she can curl her fingers around his wrist and waits until he starts jerking at her wrist and hissing violently before letting go. The giant black scorch mark on his skin looks painful and it won't heal for quite some time. Eloise glares at Damon as she rips the drawer open to grab the dagger.

"Get your shit together Damon. I'm not Andie, and I'm not Elena. You can't threaten me and not expect me to do a hell of a lot worse in response." she grabs the jar of ash as well, "Get rid of Andie, now, and maybe think about this conversation while we're at it. I don't have to be here Damon, I could be in Chicago with Miranda and my shop but I'm here, because you're my friend not because I owe you anything."

With her piece said and the weapon within her possession Eloise storms out of the library. The dagger and jar of ash get stashed in her new work room where no one else will be able to get their hands on them before Eloise gives the OK. Another spell is layered over her barrier, a nasty one that will not only warn her to any attempted break-ins but will also render whoever tries to enter or undo the spell incapacitated for a handful of hours- how long really depends on how strong the person attempting to break in or take down her barrier is, but it's still going to be long enough for Eloise to return and raise hell. Eloise smiles darkly as she pulls the heavy metal door shut behind her as she leaves. Damon's waiting for her at the top of the stairs looking like he's been sucking on a lemon for the past ten minutes. She makes sure to scowl at him as he stomps by.

"Where are you going?" Damon demands.

"I have to make orders for the shop." Eloise coolly replies.

"Can't Miranda do that? I mean, she does work for you."

Eloise turns to level Damon with a scathing look and says, "No. Miranda is my roommate and is looking after the shop because she's my friend, but she has a life of her own and I'm going to make it as easy for her to manage my shop as possible. Besides, we don't get enough business to justify hiring copious amounts of people."

It's true. Dispel and That Spell is a great shop for witches, vampires, and werewolves to visit when they need something but they're not an overly large community and there's not enough push with the occult for people to come in out of genuine interest. Oh, she's got a decent human clientele but it's really not enough for Eloise to be comfortable hiring more people under her when her shop isn't open every day of the week and she's paying more in building rent than she honestly likes. It's shit. Eloise wishes she could hire more people, wishes there was more interest in her shop, but there's really not and so she's going to make this as easy on Miranda as she can.

Damon's fingers curl around her shoulder, Eloise shrugs them off.

"I'm mad at you right now, Damon." She says before turning and offering a tight smile, "I'll see you in a little while, yeah? We'll talk then."

Before Damon can say anything Eloise grabs the bag she'd tossed down by the door when she'd gone to the kitchen for coffee and makes for her car. Seeing as she's too angry with Damon to stay in his house while he goes off to some tea party Eloise decides to find a library of some sort, whatever she can find really, she doesn't care as long as there's free internet so that she can do her orders without having to stare at the same four walls of the Salvatore library. Her quest to find a safe, quiet place to work reveals a nice little coffee shop towards the end of the business district. It's cute. Kinda small. Eloise smiles as she gathers her things and makes for a table in the front near the windows after ordering herself a nice cup of sugared, caffeinated goodness.

A quick review of the email Miranda had sent her the other day gives Eloise a vague estimate of what they're going to need for the shop and she's pleased to note that Miranda has had decent business. Normally, Eloise wouldn't put Miranda in this situation but with Damon's call and Eloise's impromptu trip to Mystic Falls she'd just forgotten that she needed to do her orders. No time like the present she supposes. Thankfully it's mindless work and Eloise takes her time doing it because she doesn't want to go back to the boarding house before she absolutely has too and also because what else is she going to do today? Hunt down pissy hybrids? Yeah, she doesn't think so. With a roll of her eyes Eloise goes to take a sip of luke-warm coffee just as a shadow slips across the table, casting weird shapes on her computer screen as it does, and thinking it's someone coming to see if everything's alright Eloise turns to look at the person and damn near chokes on the remains of her coffee.

Because there's Elijah Mikaelson, bad hair and all, standing at her side with two coffee containers and a aloof smile. She ignores the rust colored speckling along the cuff of his dress shirt as that's totally none of her business, opting instead for a smile that's less chilly but no more friendly than his own either.

"Luka works fast, I see," Eloise says despite feeling vaguely like she's going to puke all over the table.

Elijah's eyes are cool as he takes a seat in the chair opposite her own.

"Yes, well, I was rather surprised to learn that another witch released Stefan Salvatore from the tomb. I've had the Martin's watching you for some time now." Elijah remarks rather blandly.

"Sounds like your witches were slacking. Might want to work on that... Wouldn't do for Elena to think you weren't holding up your end of the deal." Eloise is an idiot and she's going to die, but it's like word vomit, she just can't seem to stop herself.

Which isn't good because something shifts in Elijah's eyes and she knows that she's maybe done something irreparably stupid because Elijah's voice is icy when he asks, "Is that a threat?"

"No. If I wanted to threaten you I wouldn't use Elena to do it," Eloise powers down her laptop and shoves it back in it's bag, "I guess it's my poor way of making conversation with someone who could break every bone in my body before I could stop them. I'm a nervous talker. Sometimes my brain-to-mouth filter doesn't work like it should. Hi, I'm Eloise."

She offers her hand, ignores the faint shaking, and plasters a sunny smile on her face all the while thinking how bad an idea this was. She should have just stayed home and waited until someone was available to act as a buffer between her and the original. Oh well, too late now she supposes. If she's going to die at least she's going to die knowing she tried not to be completely offensive.

Warm fingers curl around her own as Elijah twists her hand so that her palm is facing the ceiling. He raises the upturned appendage to his lips so he can place a chaste kiss to her palm, his nose brushing the inside of her wrist. To anyone watching the encounter it might look like two lovers being a little too happy to see each other but Eloise knows that the only reason he's done it is so he can get a good sniff of her without any of the human patrons calling the cops on him for harassing the chipper girl in the front corner of the coffee shop. People don't tend to react all that well when strangers go about sniffing at young girl's necks. They think it's creepy. Eloise, on the other hand, finds it mildly amusing and allows Elijah his fill of her scent before pulling her hand away.

"I ran into your friend earlier. Damon, was it? I'm pleased to note that at least one of Elena's protectors knows how to show the proper respect."

A quick glance at the speckling at his cuff.

Damon always knows how to piss people off. It's like some sort of sixth sense. Eloise has told him that it'll get him killed one day, thankfully today doesn't appear to be the day she buries her best friend. Taking a sip of her coffee allows Eloise a moment to compose herself before she begins talking again.

"Is that what Damon did? Disrespect you?" Eloise asks.

Elijah's eyes gleam as he speaks, "Why am I here?"

"I just want to talk."

"And what would a young witch such as yourself wish to discuss with me?"

Sitting across from her now Elijah doesn't look all that terrible. His hair's still terrible but it's soft looking and obviously well kept, his eyes are a sort of roasted coffee-bean brown and framed by a dark curtain of lashes, and his jawline seems to go on for days. Attractive but not all that dangerous in appearance. Maybe it's a shock. She's seen his face in the little mirror connecting her to Elena's home but she hadn't been really looking at him then, had only taken the opportunity to put herself one step ahead of Elijah and his witch(es) so that they'd notice her. Come looking for her. Eloise drums her fingertips against the top of her thighs as she ponders over what to tell the man sitting across from her... Sometimes honesty is the best policy but what if that gets her killed? Sighing, Eloise goes to tuck wayward hair behind her ear and begins talking.

"News travels quick in our circles. How long do you think it's going to be before Klaus hears about Elena and comes after her? A month? A year? Sure, you're keeping Elena's existence pretty quiet at the moment but you can't honestly expect that to work in the long run. So what are you really doing?" Eloise asks to which Elijah raises an eyebrow at her in question? Warning? Eloise glances off to the side before shaking her head.

"if I didn't know better I would say you were threatening me." Elijah hums, all danger and quiet rage.

"No," Eloise shakes her head, "if I was threatening you I'd have mentioned the silver dagger coated in white oak ash currently hidden in my work space. I'm not threatening anybody. I'm just trying to figure out if I should wipe all of Damon's memories and bale before things get really bad."

Several emotions dance across Elijah's features; confusion, realization, rage, and then a grudging sort of curiosity. Eloise hadn't expected him to take the news of the Salvatores having a dagger lightly. If the weapon really can kill him he'd have been crazy not to be enraged at the fact that someone is planning on attempting to murder him.

"Did Elena agree to this?" Elijah demands lowly to which Eloise shrugs.

"No idea," She says, "all I know is someone named John gave Damon the dagger and a jar of ash. I was supposed to make sure everything checked out but I'm not overly fond of their plan to possibly kill you... not when you might be the only person who can handle Klaus."

Elijah is eyeing her suspiciously, like he can't decide whether or not she's trying to manipulate him into doing something that would benefit her. Eloise doesn't blame him. Having lived as long as he has there's bound to be some trust issues among the plethora of complexities that make up the Original Vampire, she's just glad he hasn't tried to rip her tongue out or attempted to compel her. Neither would work but it's nice to be able to say they started their professional relationship without resorting to violence.

"What is it you want?"

"The truth. I'm not dying for Elena, ok? Unfortunately, I can't keep myself from getting hurt if I don't know what's going on."

"And you think that by telling me about the dagger I would tell you all of my secrets?" Elijah's amusement is genuine and it makes Eloise smirk.

"Just one; what are you planning on doing once Klaus gets here?"

Silence settles around them for several moments as Elijah and Eloise stare one another down. Around them, customers of the coffee shop go about their business and none of them pay a lick of attention to the vampire and witch sitting near the windows. Either they've been compelled or the tension between the two of them isn't nearly as thick as Eloise thinks it is because no one's come over to try and rescue her. A sharp beep comes from her phone but Eloise doesn't look down. Whoever it is can wait. Eloise has more important things to do at the moment than entertain Damon's idiocy.

"I plan on killing him."

The conviction, the rage, in Elijah's tone is startling. He'd been so collected throughout their conversation that even the revelation of the Salvatores having the dagger hadn't really ruffled hi feathers. But he's mad now, madder than he's ever been in his life. Furious even. Eloise has to look away before she can get caught up in the emotion clouding his eyes.

"Alright." She says in response, gathering her items as she does.

"Is that all you wanted to discuss? My plans for Klaus?" Elijah asks.

"I'd like to get together sometime in the next few days and talk but family squabbles are none of my business. Whatever's got you so mad at your brother that you'd willingly try to kill him isn't something I feel comfortable discussing." Eloise offers a polite smile and tries to ignore the look he's giving her. "I'm off. It was nice meeting you, Elijah."

"And you as well."

Eloise bobs a quick nod before beating a hasty retreat. The original doesn't follow her but Eloise thinks she can feel his eyes drilling holes into the back of her head as she opens the driver's door, without looking at the coffee shop she manages to slide in behind the wheel and guide the car out of it's slot before taking off back in the direction of the boarding house. With the sun beginning to set it's safe to assume Damon will be waiting for her at the house so they can discuss plans over dinner. Eloise tightens her grip on the steering wheel, wonder about how she's going to get Andie Star out of the picture. The sooner the cute little reporter is out of the picture the better off she'll be. Because people end up dead when they get involved in the supernatural community. It's just easier for vampires to bounce back from whatever moral wound failed to put them down permanently. Too bad for Andie, she isn't a vampire nor is she any other type of durable supernatural being.

Sighing, Eloise turns out of town and onto the road that leads up to the Boarding House as the sun begins to sink a little closer to the horizon.

Maybe the best option is to somehow get another vampire to compel Andie to forget all about Damon, pump her full of vervain, and somehow get her out of Mystic Falls. The farther she is from this place the better of she'll be int he long run. Damon won't like it but Eloise doesn't enjoy pulling innocent people into the danger fest that is the supernatural community. The less humans know the better off they are. It doesn't make them any safer really, but at least they don't know about immortality and witches and therefore can't go sticking their noses in places they shouldn't belong. Eloise would rather be the crazy twenty-two year old occult fanatic in the eyes of clueless humans than the answer to all of their problems.

She guides the car to her normal spot and kills the engine before taking a moment to gather her thoughts along with her items. With her bags in hand Eloise makes for the front door and enters without so much as a word of greeting to the men she passes in the hall as she heads toward the workspace. Damon asks where she's been all day but Eloise doesn't bother answering him. Because screw him, that's why. He's not her guardian and she doesn't owe him an explanation. She's twenty-two goddamn years old, far from a defenseless child. Far from being defenseless Elena.

Soft candlelight greets her as Eloise allows her magic to flare as she opens up the door to her workspace. A quick look around tells her nothing's been disturbed or taken without her knowledge so either her barrier worked or no one realizes where she's put the ash and dagger. Without much thought Eloise snags a grimoire off the pile and takes a seat in the circle of candles currently burning away off to the side of the room. She flips through the yellowed pages of the grimoire for what feels like hours, pressing slips of paper in between pages when she finds spells that look particularly entertaining. Some of them look pretty nasty but Eloise has already dabbled in enough of what most witches consider to be dark magic that those spells don't seem all that daunting. They'd take quite a bit of energy out of her but none of them seem impossible for her to do on her own. Still, it wouldn't be good for her to do them all on her own without any sort of emergency backup.

As she goes to set the book aside a sharp series of thuds has Eloise glancing up at the ceiling and the silence that follows those thumps seems ominous. Carefully, silently, Eloise rises from her seat position on the floor and makes for the heavy door protecting her from whatever might be happening on the main level of the house. She doubts Damon and Alaric were horsing around as they seem to be a little too mature for all that but Eloise doesn't doubt that they might have started fighting someone who isn't allowed in the house. Wherever Rose ran off to Eloise hopes she hasn't gotten back yet because it wouldn't sit well if Eloise saved the girl only for her to turn around and stab them all in the back. The stairs leading up are dark but Eloise has no trouble navigating them and when she gets to the thick wooden door the witch presses her ear against the door in the hopes of hearing something.

Gibberish. That's all she can make out through the wood, muffled voices that don't make sense but the sudden rustling and clanging tells her that whoever broke in has taken Damon out and is currently going through their things. What they're after, Eloise doesn't know but it sounds like there's more than two and they've somehow managed to take Damon. Eloise swears violently in her mind as she pulls out her phone.

_Get Elijah to the Boarding house. Now. _

The message is quickly sent off to the doppleganger and the phone slipped back into her pocket just as the doorknob above her head rattles. Terrified, Eloise presses a finger to the brass, channels her magic, and hopes to god this silent- and untested- spell does what she's expecting it do.

"What are you doing?" A woman's voice manages to slip under the door.

"Checking the basement." Says a man.

"Come on, help us get him into the library. This house is old and it's probably not even here to begin with."

"But what if it is?"

A pause. Then, "Are you seriously passing up the opportunity to get information out of a _vampire_?"

Eloise doesn't hear anymore conversation aside from a soft exhale before the pair wander off and then it's the sound of bodies dragging that can only just be heard through the door. She waits until another door slams shut before slipping out into the hall on silent feet. Carefully avoiding intruders while darting through an old house turns out to be a lot easier than Eloise thought it would be, which is nice because she makes it to the backdoor in no time and slips out without anyone noticing. Weapons are scattered all over the Salvatore house but none of them are going to be easy enough for Eloise to take down without being spotted so the garage is the best place to go as Damon has a nice little stash of emergency weapons stashed there. Eloise peaks around the side of the house to make sure no one's lurking around keeping a perimeter before she makes a mad dash for the garage only to be stopped dead as an arm snakes around her waits.

Something rich and heady invades Eloise's nose as she struggles briefly against whoever's holding her but it only takes a moment for her to realize that the cologne she's smelling is the same one Elijah had been wearing in the coffee shop. She hadn't thought much about it then as she'd been more concerned with keeping her head attached to her neck but she can admit it's a good scent for him. Too bad it would probably cost at least three months worth of Eloise's paycheck to buy as a Christmas gift. Elijah's grip on her disappears once Eloise has stopped fighting against him, allowing her to whip around and face the original vampire who probably saved her life.

"Elena said something happened." Elijah remarks blandly, like he hadn't just witnessed Eloise's pathetic attempt at non-magical self defense.

"There are people in the house, they took out Damon and Ric."

"Why?"

Eloise gives him a _look_ as she says, "I don't know! They're looking for something."

Coffee-bean eyes narrow as they turn to the house.

"Wait by the car."

"I'm sorry?"

"The car, wait by it while I attend to Damon."

And then he's gone and Eloise is left contemplating her choices in the space between the garage and the house. Seeing as Elijah isn't going to let anyone walk out of that house alive Eloise stomps over to her car so she can lean against the hood without feeling guilty about possibly scratching Elijah's car. It's a sleek little thing. Very shiny.

Hours seem to pass and nothing happens. Eloise remains by her car, fiddling with her necklace and muttering about stupid Salvatores when the front door bursts open to reveal a terrified looking blonde. The two stare at each other for a long moment before the other woman turns to make for the trees. Eloise is much faster. She knows that there was only one woman in the house with the intruders and who wouldn't be terrified of Elijah? If Eloise were in the woman's shoes she'd try to abandon ship too... But Eloise is this woman and she seems to be the leader of the group. Which means she's the reason Damon and Ric were hurt.

A pained cry is ripped from the woman as Eloise's magic rips her feet out from under her, pinning her to the ground when she lands sprawled on the pavement. Eloise doesn't pity her, nor does she offer the smallest bit of sympathy as she curls her fingers in toward her chest to pull her magic- and the woman- toward her. Once the blonde is pinned at Eloise's feet the young witch kneels down and frowns.

"You're a werewolf." Eloise says to which the woman's eyes go wide.

"Please! Please, I just want the moonstone!"

Cocking her head to the side Eloise asks, "Are you the alpha of the pack that went after Damon?"

Her lack of an answer is all Eloise needs and she scowls as she presses her finger tips to the woman's temple. Blue eyes roll back as the woman's body slumps forward, sliding through Eloise's loose grip like water. After that it's a simple matter of popping her trunk, maneuvering the woman's body into the car, and rendering her completely incapable of movement before Eloise hops in behind the wheel and leaves the boarding house behind without a second thought.


	6. Chapter 6

"What do you mean you have a werewolf in your trunk?" Miranda's voice is shrill on the other end of the phone and Eloise forces herself to take a deep breath before she says anything else.

"I don't have a werewolf in my trunk now, I had a werewolf in my trunk three minuted ago... I'm just not sure what to do with her now that she's not in my trunk anymore."

There's a short pause before Miranda asks, "Why do you have her in your trunk then?"

"Uh, because she's a dangerous criminal and she murdered one of my best friends?"

"Seems reasonable."

Pinching the bridge of her nose as she pulls the phone away from her face Eloise stares down at the werewolf sprawled out on the ground at her feet. Kidnapping her had be a spur of the moment decision that Eloise has come to regret as she has no where to hide the unconscious woman and isn't entirely sure what she's going to do with her after she finds somewhere to keep her. Clearly, Eloise didn't think any of this through which is why she called Miranda when she hauled the dead weight of the woman out of her car.

"Do you have any suggestions on what I should do with her? Because I'm kind of flying by the seat of my pants."

"Aren't you just going to kill her?"

"Not if she's going to be useful in the future, Miranda."

Miranda sighs loudly before she says, "Well it looks like you're in luck then, because I happen to know of a certain ritual that needs a werewolf sacrifice."

"What?"

"You know, the curse? The cure currently keeping Klaus Mikaelson the most dangerous Vampire in the world and not the most dangerous hybrid?"

"It needs a werewolf sacrifice?" Eloise presses her lips together.

Murder isn't something she's new to. This wouldn't be the first person she's killed whether directly or indirectly. If Klaus needs a werewolf sacrifice for this curse to be broken then what else does he need? The Doppelganger, clearly, he wouldn't go after her if he didn't. Miranda only confirms her suspicions when she starts talking again.

"Supposedly the ritual needs to take place on a full moon with a vampire, werewolf, and doppelganger sacrifice. I think the moonstone's involved somehow too but I honestly don't know how it fits in. A binding agent maybe?"

"Think I could make a deal with Klaus? Get him a werewolf and a vampire and somehow save the doppelganger?"

"Dunno, hon. The guy I talked to seemed pretty twitchy and I wasn't willing to get myself pinged on a certain cursed vampire's radar. Maybe you could? Do you have a vampire?"

There are a handful of vampires she knows but only three- soon to be four - in the immediate area that she could use for the curse. Eloise presses her lips together as she contemplates what she's going to do. Seems a little specific but aren't most curses? To unlock his hybrid nature Klaus needs to kill the things that represent him and then killed the doppelganger as well, it's the only way he's going to be able to make more hybrids and the witch who cursed him really didn't make it all that easy for him to... oh.

_Oh_.

"Miranda?"

"Yeah?"

"If I were going to curse someone what advice would you give me?"

"... I'd tell you to make them hurt. Not in an obvious way, subtly. I'd tell you to make them suffer."

"And if a certain doppelganger was needed to make more hybrids? Would that fit the bill?"

Miranda's laughter is panicked and high-pitches as she catches on to what Eloise is implying. Klaus Mikaelson is going to kill Elena, it's inevitable, but when he goes to make more hybrids will it work? Cursing someone requires hate. It doesn't have to be hate directed at the person being cursed specifically but as the caster you need to be packing some pretty dark feelings in order to perform most curses... And maybe the witch who cursed Klaus _did_ hate him, or maybe just what he became after he was turned into a vampire. Doppelganger blood was used to bind the curse and doppelganger blood is needed to unseal it. Nature is full of loopholes, curses and cures aren't much better. Eloise stares down at the werewolf sleeping on the forest floor and swallows.

"That would work," Miranda's voice trembles. "Give him what he's always wanted by deny him the opportunity to be part of something bigger. Eloise, if you're right about this..."

"I am."

"Then you might be able to bargain with Klaus but I without any proof there's no way he would listen to you."

"I know, just get get me an email address or something ok? Please?"

"You better lock that werewolf up somewhere nice and tight before you go and find yourself a vampire." Is all Miranda says before she hangs up the phone.

Fingers tremble as Eloise shoves her own phone in her back pocket before she kneels down to press those same fingers against the temples of the unconscious woman. Damon had said that the werewolves kept Caroline in a camper right? If she can get the location to the camper then maybe she can somehow keep her locked up there and hidden until she gets into contact with Klaus. A quick enchantment and a bloody nose later Eloise is shoving the werewolf back into her trunk - she'd been planning on killing her earlier ok? Sue her for not wanting blood all over her trunk - and then she's speeding off in the direction of the camper. Without any of her supplies all she can really do is create boundary spells and hope to god no one comes along with another witch who can undo them. Maybe Eloise can put up an illusion of some sort? Make it look like the camper is gone? Might be a little tricky but Eloise has always liked a challenge.

When she reaches the camper Eloise does a quick search of the area and when nothing tries to kill her Eloise returns to the werewolf curled up in the trunk. She's still asleep, which makes it easier for Eloise to haul her out of the tiny space and to the camper where she quickly shoves the woman into a blood spattered cell someone managed to put up. It's probably the same cell they kept Caroline in. Eloise doesn't know exactly what happened that night but it must have been really bad because Damon had come home pissed off and tense. Smiling, Eloise snags a Tupperware container and cleans it out as best she can before she snags a nasty looking knife and uses it to slide the werewolf's arm open, once there's enough blood in the bottom of the container Eloise puts it off to the side and pops the lid on before she slams the cell door shut so she can watch as her spell fades away from the safety offered by the cage. While she waits for the werewolf to wake up Eloise puts up a few barrier and containment spells. Better safe than sorry, after all.

Minutes pass before the werewolf's eyes flash open and she springs to her feet, charging the cage bars with a vicious snarl only to be flung back as the stench of burning skin fills the camper.

"Kind of works like a shock collar. Get to close to the bars and it zaps you a little, touch the bars and, well, werewolves heal quick right?" Eloise asks and they botch glance down at the reddened, blistered palms of the werewolf's hands.

She let go quickly, good for her.

Means she's smart.

"Why are you doing this?" The werewolf snarls, blue eyes teary with pain and rage.

"Did you know that the Sun and Moon Curse is a joke? The moonstone can't let a vampire walk in the sun or a vampire avoid their shifts, it only unlocks one curse and that's the curse keeping Klaus Mikaelson from reaching his full potential as a hybrid. That stone wouldn't have done shit for you unless you're looking for a quick death... Now you're gonna sit here and rot until Klaus Mikaelson shows up and I can exchange you and some other poor fucker for mine and Damon's safety."

"Damon Salvatore? I should have known." The werewolf spits at her feet, "So what are you? His whore?"

"Close, I'm his witch actually. A very powerful one that you pissed off."

The werewolf's hands have healed and she uses them to balance herself as she sits down.

"Tyler will come for me, and he'll get his witch to let me out."

"He won't even know where you are," Eloise smiles, a malicious twist of her mouth that displays her teeth, "All he's going to know is that you abandoned him, used him, tried to kill his friends... He's not coming for you. No one is."

Panic fills those pretty blue eyes for a moment and the werewolf leans forward until she's forced to stop.

"I'll die before Klaus gets here. I'll kill myself if it means I get to fuck you over."

Eloise holds up the container of blood and smiles, "See this? It's your blood. Most darker spells require a targets blood to work and I know some pretty nasty spells that'll keep you from dying long enough for Klaus to get here." Eloise puts the container in her lap, "Not that I'm too worried about it, the spells on your _cage_ won't let you anywhere near the bars and there's nothing on that side of them that can kill you."

"Aren't witches supposed to hate vampires?" The werewolf's voice cracks, her attempt at looking tough and brave good but not good enough.

"We're supposed to hate werewolves too, poppet." Eloise winks before she rises and adjusts her hold on the container of blood, "I'll be back tomorrow with some food for you."

The sound of the werewolf's enraged screaming follows Eloise out of the camper, echoing off the trees surrounding the small clearing the vehicle had been parked in. Eloise doesn't waste time feeling guilty about leaving the woman in the camper nor does she feel bad about kidnapping her and spends the valuable time she has sealing the camper off from anyone who might try to stumble upon it. Sloppily done as they are the simple enchantments will allow her time to go home, get what she needs, and return to put up sturdier boundaries. When she's satisfied no one's going to barge in and take her werewolf Eloise climbs into her car and begins the trip back to the boarding house.

Elijah's car is gone but so are Alaric's and Damon's, which Eloise is honestly thankful for because the last thing she wants to do right now is deal with any of them demanding to know where she's been for the past few hours. With little time to spare Eloise parks her car, pockets the key, and makes for her workspace. The sooner she spells the werewolf the sooner she can go to bed and the sooner she can go about finding a vampire. Thankfully, spelling the werewolf o that she's relatively unharmable is easy. Spiteful old witches really are a gem when it comes to thinking up nasty little hexes. And they think vampires are monsters. Eloise scoffs as she dumps some of the leftover blood in a vial marked with a bit of scotch tape and her tiny lettering, it's going in the mini-fridge Damon keeps some of his emergency blood in and hopefully the fucker doesn't mess with it before Klaus shows up... not that getting more blood out of the werewolf would be hard. Inconvenient as hell, but not all that difficult.

Sharp pain lances through Eloise's legs as she rises from her kneeling position, the sudden rush of blood through her limbs causing pins and needles to jab at her nerve endings as she hobbles into the section of the house the brothers keep their vervain - which is fucking weird for vampires to keep around but it's gotta be for the doppelganger because why else would they have it? - so that she can deposit her vial of werewolf blood before she makes her way to her bedroom. No one passes her in the hall, no one questions where she's been, and Eloise wonders if maybe Rose had the good sense to abandon ship before things get too messy. Probably one of the smartest things Rose has ever done in her life. Eloise gnaws at the inside of her cheek, shutting the door to her temporary bedroom behind her as she questions whether or not Rose has actually left or if she's currently riding out her first few days as a newborn vampire in the privacy of a remote location. Damon and Rose had been talking about it, and the daylight ring Eloise had made for Rose went missing not too long ago... It's for the best. Freshly turned vampires are a pain to deal with and Eloise doesn't imagine all of Rose's well-earned control has followed her into this new life.

Eloise groans as she strips out of her day clothes, shoes kicked off at the end of the bed to wait for the morning next to a pile of dirty clothes. Too tired to put on pajamas Eloise climbs into bed, pulls the covers up to her chin, and settles in for a fitful night. Soft creaking from around the house lulls her to sleep surrounded by too many blankets and the smell of burning sage. It's the same smell that greets her the next morning when Eloise wakes in a cold sweat and trembling. A quick glance at her phone tells her it's well past noon, so either Damon was a gem and decided to let her sleep or Eloise was so dead to the world that his attempts at waking her didn't do much. She shoots Damon a text to let him know she's awake and has some errands to run before she shuffles off to the bathroom where she finds herself grimacing at her appearance.

Growing up Eloise had her fair share of insecurities, still does, but as she got older she became more appreciative of her face. It's a nice face; ovular with sharp cheekbones, a nice nose, and a set of lips that aren't too big and aren't too small. Her prettiest feature though, and maybe even her worst, are her eyes; one a soft foresty green while the other appears silvery beneath the heavy curtain of her lashes. They're her father's eyes, the eyes that connect her to the family she left behind, the monsters she left behind. Frowning, Eloise tuns on the shower head and steps into the still frigid water where she finds herself shivering for reasons far beyond that of the chill caused by the water pounding against her shoulders. Eloise showers quickly, attempting to rinse her apprehension down the drain along with her body wash, it doesn't help all that much but when she gets out of the shower she feels a little better about life.

Unfortunately, Damon is waiting for her in her bedroom when she slips into the room and the ok feeling she'd been sporting turns into something hesitantly annoyed as she adjusts her towel so that she doesn't accidentally give Damon a little peep show.

"We're having a dinner party tonight, Elijah's coming, so I'm gonna need that dagger." Damon says.

"Get rid of Andie yet?" Eloise asks as she pulls open her top dresser drawer to fish out a pain of underwear, when Damon doesn't answer she continues with a bored, "Then you won't be needing that dagger."

"You cannot be serious right now."

Eloise turns to level her friend with a look and says, "I'm very serious, Damon... Besides, he already knows about the dagger."

"_What?_"

"You asked me to help you keep Elena safe, double-crossing an original vampire isn't going to help you accomplish anything." Eloise says, deciding on a cute little red set she's been toting around but hasn't actually gotten to wear yet.

"So you told Elijah that we have a weapon that can kill him?"

"Damon," Eloise turns to face the furious looking vampire, "get your head out of your ass, it's not a hat."

"Killing Elijah is the only thing keeping Elena alive! With him dead we can focus on Klaus! Focus on keeping Elena from being murdered by some sociopath!"

"Do you really think that killing Elijah's going to get you anywhere? Ok, I'll give you the dagger. I'll let you stab Elijah in the back, but when it doesn't work we start doing things my way? Got it?" Eloise asks, eyes narrowing on Damon.

The vampire seethes from his spot on Eloise's bed and the young witch releases a slow breath before making her way over to her friend. When she's close enough she tosses her underwear onto the bed before taking both of his hands in hers.

"Have I ever intentionally screwed you over?" Eloise asks.

Damon offers a terse, "No."

"Have I ever done anything to betray the trust you've put in me?"

Another terse, "No."

"Then why do you think I'd do anything like that to you now? I've only ever been your friend and as you're friend I'm going to try and keep you alive. I'm not here for Elena, I'm here for you. I'm here because you're my best friend and you asked me to help you. So let me help you."

Ice chips away in Damon's eyes as they stare at one another and soon enough warm lips are pressing against her knuckles before Damon gently presses her away from him so that he can stand.

"I'm going to kill Elijah tonight, Elle.."

"Then I hope you're ready to deal with the fallout, Damon, because I'm not your mother. I won't clean up all of your messes."

Damon offers a slow non before he disappears from the room, the door closing behind him with a soft _click_.

Moments pass before Eloise pulls an outfit from her closet so she can change. Once she's dressed Eloise makes for her workspace so that she can grab the dagger and ash before Damon can start pestering her about it. The hilt of the dagger is cold in her hand and Eloise wonders if she's really going to do this. Is she really going to let Damon get himself killed because he's convinced killing Elijah is for the best? Damon's her best friend, one of the few she's got, and it doesn't sit well with her to let him go into this alone. But he won't be alone. Because Alaric will probably be there along with whoever else wants Elijah dead - Eloise thinks that with as many people as the doppelganger has wrapped around her finger that's probably a lot - so he's not going to be alone with Elijah when things go south. Eloise purses her lips and stares at the dagger. Damon needs to learn that not everything is as cut and dry as stabbing someone with a sketchy ass dagger. He needs to know that his actions have consequences but is letting him kill the only real threat to Klaus the right way to do it?

No.

The answer is no.

Adrenaline fills her as Eloise digs around in the supply bag she keeps down here and pulls out her athame, which looks nothing like the dagger resting across her lap. Eloise presses her lips together, scoots back so she can put the athame on the ground, picks up the dagger and wraps her hand around the silver blade, and then uses a quick jerk to rip her palm open. Because she needs pain and blood for her spell to work and this? Well, this gets her both.

Blood drips from the blade of the dagger and splatters across the surface of the athame as Eloise mutters, "Ex forma mutata. Summa partes. Ex forma mutata. Facti sunt figura novi."

Around her the air thickens into a muggy soup that leaves Eloise heaving for breath as she folds herself over the dagger, watching through blurry vision as the athame's shape morphs into something new. Trembling, Eloise waits for the power in the room to fade before she cleans up the silver dagger and shoves it into the inside pocket of her oversize cardigan. Blood pools in her hand, stains the stone floor as it drips from her palm. With a huff Eloise tries to stem the flow as she makes for the library where Damon is probably waiting. She swings by the bathroom to grab a towel and performs a quick spell to clean up the blood trail she left in her wake before going off to find Damon.

"You're bleeding." Damon says as she enters the library but his eyes never leave the liquor he's pouring into his glass.

"Accidentally sliced myself open on my athame."

Damon snags another glass from the tray, bites into his wrist, and waits until the wound seals back before offering her the glass. A vague sense of guilt fills her as she takes the glass. What she has to feel guilty about is beyond her. Damon's a big boy and it's not like the disguised athame isn't going to incapacitate Elijah for a while. Eloise takes a deep breath through her mouth before she drains the contents of the glass as quickly as she can. It may have it's uses but vampire blood is still blood and Eloise is still just a human. Blood doesn't hold the same appeal to her as it does a vampire, so if she gags a little bit as she hands the bloody glass back to Damon who's going to blame her?

"Dinner's at seven by the way." Damon tells her, tone full of glee.

"Yeah, I'm not going to be there," Eloise offers the dagger and ash, "I've got to run some errands and tie up loose ends so I won't be here when your plan backfires."

"You wound me, Elle."

"I'm being pragmatic. You should try it sometime."

Damon's arms fold across her shoulders as he pulls her against his chest, chin resting on the top of her head. Casual embraces are commonplace in their relationship but Eloise can't say that's going to stay a thing after tonight so she coils her arms around Damon's waist and squeezes a bit.

"Promise me that if this fails you'll listen to me from now on, ok?" She's not begging.

"I promise, Elle," Damon's tone is soft.

"And you'll handle Andie."

A sigh, then, "And I'll handle Andie. Happy?"

Eloise pulls away and smiles, "It's the best I'm getting from you so I suppose I am."

Leather creaks as Damon pulls away, making for a table with the dagger and ash in his hand. Her inner pocket feels like it's full of lead but Eloise doesn't say anything as Damon puts the weapon in a large wooden box. A quick goodbye is exchanged between them when Eloise starts feeling ill to her stomach. Thankfully, Damon doesn't ask where she's going or what she's doing so Eloise doesn't have to lie about the fact that she's going to the grocery store to get the werewolf currently locked in the camper some food. Getting her shit together would be a good thing for her to do about now wouldn't it?

The dagger is slid under the driver's seat and when she gets the chance Eloise has every intention of burying it somewhere in the forest.

Directions to the closest grocery store are quickly put in her gps, which guides her back into the business district of Mystic Falls near a cluster of stores closer to the residential area than anything else. Eloise is quick to get things the werewolf is going to need; cereal, some bread, some sandwich meat, some bottles of Gatorade, some sweets that one of her customers is always raving about after the full moon rolls around, and then some personal hygiene items. She's a lot of things but a monster Eloise is not. Being caged like a dog has to be humiliating enough right? Eloise isn't going to further shame the woman by not allowing her the opportunity to brush her fucking teeth and put on some deodorant. Eloise smiles at the teenager at the register before she leaves. Because sometimes customer service is a shit job and Eloise likes to think of herself as an aspiring ray of sunshine.

The drive to the camper is silent. There are no phone calls from Damon, no texts, no calls. Nothing. Eloise tries not to let that bother her as she slides her car in beside the camper. It's hardly seven o'clock. Damon wouldn't just stab Elijah the second he stepped into the boarding house... but would he even get the chance? Would Eloise's spell hold? There's no reason it shouldn't but Eloise is banking on this not working out for Damon because she needs him to listen to her. She also needs a reason for Elijah to trust her and what better way to get that trust than to give him the thing that could possibly rob him of his opportunity to do, well, anything? Can't kill Klaus if he's dead but he also can't skip town and live his life however it is he wants to live it.

Eloise gathers the bags from the backseat and makes for the front door.

"Where have you been?" The werewolf snarls as Eloise steps into the camper.

There's blood on the floor of her cage, looks like maybe she tried to claw herself open. Eloise sighs as she sets the bags on the small counter in the kitchen space, sorting through everything and putting the items that need to be refrigerated where the minifridge is. She disposes of the blood bags piled up toward the back because no one's going to use it and they're probably bad anyway.

"Getting you things. Do you need to use the bathroom?" Eloise asks, gathering the hygiene items as she does.

"Why are you doing this? I thought you wanted me dead."

"I don't want you dead, you're a means to an end but that doesn't mean I can't treat you like a decent human being." Eloise offers the woman an acidic smile. "I'm not you and your asshole friends. I don't torture seventeen year old girls because they're vampires and I want something from them."

The werewolf scoffs, "For a witch you're awfully chummy with those parasites."

"Just the one actually." Eloise says before she makes for the bathroom where she puts out the hygiene items and removes anything that could be a weapon.

She's not stupid enough to give the werewolf free reign of the house as there are too many weapons that could be used against her, but she's also not going to be that person that watches her prisoners use the toilet to make sure they don't do anything fishy. When she returns to the cages the werewolf is staring at her through narrowed blue eyes and Eloise releases a tired breath.

"Look, if I don't have to hand you over to Klaus I'm not going to." Eloise runs a hand through her hair, "but I do need you to stay here where I know you aren't going to try and kill anyone. Now, I'm sure you probably need to pee, so I'm going to walk you out of this cage and let you go to the bathroom. Deal?"

A jerky nod is her only response and Eloise uses her magic to pin the werewolf in place before she opens the cage door, and as expected the werewolf bolts. Charging for the front door without so much as a second glance at Eloise only to bounce back with an agonized shriek as the same barrier that keep her in her cage zaps against the opposite wall. After a short pause the werewolf regain her bearings and in an act of pure, animalistic desperation lunges at Eloise, who merely raises her hand and freezes the werewolf in place.

"Try something like that again and I'll give you a pot to pee in next time, yeah?" Eloise curls her fingers into a fist, watches as the werewolf begins to squirm as the air is crushed out of her lungs, then Eloise drops her hand and the werewolf crumples to the floor seconds later.

Trembling and clearly terrified, the werewolf gets to her feet before staggering off in the direction of the bathroom. Eloise waits until the door slides shut before turning to make the woman some dinner. When her werewolf returns from the bathroom she smells like mint and deodorant, the bloods been washed off of her arms, and she looks less haggard. She takes a seat at the table with a hateful glare and Eloise rolls her eyes as she leans back against the cage bars to watch as the werewolf scarfs down the sandwich Eloise made her. Once she's finished Eloise is quick to knock her out. Now that she's gotten the woman some food and spelled the camper - and the werewolf herself - there's no reason for Eloise to stick around. She'll come back in a few days to check on her but she can't spend ever waking moment of her day tending to the blonde. So she leaves her slumped against the table in a camper she can never escape without a witch's help and no way to contact the outside world until Eloise can get into contact with Klaus.

Is it cruel? Eloise doesn't doubt it. Cruelty is subjective but Eloise can't imagine that being forced to live in a camper where you tortured vampires as you wait for your possible execution is a good thing. Eloise leaves before she can start feeling things for the werewolf. Seals the camper up nice and tight from the outside before hightailing it back to her car where. She's sliding into the driver's seat when her phone goes off. It's a text from Damon.

_Took care of it. Don't take out the dagger xoxo. _

Something cold settles in the spaces between her bones as Eloise contemplates the possibility of having accidentally given the wrong dagger to Damon. Only time will tell she thinks, but it doesn't stop the chills that wrack her body as she drives off toward the boarding house.


	7. Chapter 7

Tires squeal as Eloise slams on her breaks, rubber grasping desperately at the asphalt as the young witch attempts to keep her car from smacking into the finely dressed man who's appeared in the middle of the street sometime in the seconds between glancing at the clock on the dash and returning her gaze to the road. There's a violent jerk as the car finally grinds to a stop that causes her seat belt to dig painfully into her neck before slamming her back against the seat. Eloise pants for a moment before she throws the car into park and climbs out into the street to face the enraged Original who almost killed her.

"Are you crazy!" Eloise yells as she stomps toward the vampire.

"Did you give Damon Salvatore the dagger?" Elijah asks when she's close enough to grab, though his hands remain at his sides despite how easy it would be for him to reach out and curl his fingers around her neck. Eloise is too angry to notice.

The question doesn't surprise her out of her rage either. When she'd given the dagger to Damon she'd been aware that when Elijah woke up he'd come looking for her first, because she'd known, had admitted to having it hidden from Damon and anyone else who would have wanted to use it against Elijah. If Damon wanted it he'd have had to get it from Eloise, and Elijah knows that.

"That's why you almost drove me off the road? Are you kidding me! I told you he was going to try something with that dagger! I tried to help you! I gave him a fake! And this is how you try to talk to me about it? _This_ is how you want to handle the situation that _you_ got yourself into! Unbelievable!" Eloise continues to rage, spitting insults at the quiet vampire and gesturing angrily with her hands until she's burned enough of the anger out to think properly. She sucks in a deep, cleansing breath before she says, "Get in the car. We're going to go get some food and we're going to have an adult conversation about what happened tonight and how we're going to proceed."

"No, I have come here to find Elena. You will take me to her and then we are leaving, be thankful I have not sought out and killed everyone involved with tonight's proceedings." The quiet rage in his voice gives Eloise brief pause but she thinks she'd be pretty mad if someone tried to kill her too.

Elijah Mikaelson is also over a thousand years old and no matter how noble and good he may be the man was raised in a time where every day was a fight for survival. The fact that he hasn't lashed out and burned the entire town to a smoldering crisp is proof enough that his self control is impeccable. Who cares if he flings around threats and angry words if he's not actually acting on them. In fact, Eloise doubts he's angry enough to actually do anything too extreme. He'd known about the dagger, after all, and Damon's intentions. Elijah has every right to be upset that Elena's protectors tried to kill him but can he really be so mad as to attack anyone when half of what happened tonight is on him? No. No he cannot.

"Tone it down a bit, Le Chiffre." Eloise shakes her head before she continues, "We have a lot to talk about so before you decide to go off an kidnap Elena - which will only give you a bigger headache at the end of the day - let's talk this out?"

With her piece said Eloise pivots and makes her way to the car where she slides into the driver's seat, slams the door shut, and unlocks the other doors so Elijah can get in. There are several seconds where Eloise thinks Elijah's just going to stand in front of her car or disappear into the night without so much as a word of goodbye but eventually his shoulders seems to relax a little and he slowly makes his way to the passenger side of the car. Eloise makes sure to toss her purse into the backseat before he gets to the door. She waits for him to settle in and buckle his seat belt - which she's thankful for, she doesn't need a ticket tonight - before she takes off again.

Going back to the Boarding House is a bad idea. Eloise needs to run damage control, negotiate her own deals, and build her own bridges without Damon or any of Elena's other protectors trying to influence her. They'll want her to focus on Elena. Which is reasonable for them, she's their friend and romantic interest so it's kind of expected for them to try and bargain Elena's safety, but Eloise isn't going to prioritize Elena where there are other people in the group that need protection just as much as she does when Klaus shows up. Because he will, and when he does there's no way Elena's friends are going to be ready for him. Elijah might not hold much sway over Klaus, if he holds any at all, but at least she'll have an _Original_ in her corner. How many people can say that? Not Elena and her friends, clearly.

"Have you eaten?" Elijah's voice startles her a bit because she hadn't expected him to start talking to her about food.

Like, yes, she'd hinted at being hungry but she's so used to dealing with people over dinner and feeding people when they're upset that it's kind of just a fallback when she doesn't know what to do. Yes, she's missed dinner and could really go for something to eat but she'd mostly been trying to find a way to talk him out of his anger.

Hesitantly, Eloise responds to the question with a soft, "No."

Elijah nods once before he starts spouting off directions as he types away at his phone. Eloise isn't sure where he's taking her but if he wants to determine where they have this conversation then so be it. When she's told to pull over in front of a house Eloise is hesitant but she does as she's told without complaining. The two of them climb out of the car and Eloise locks it up before she follows Elijah up to the front door where a man is waiting for them. Eloise offers a tense smile when he steps aside to let her and Elijah in. Meeting the Original's witches - because she's sure Luka's here too - hadn't been something she'd planned on doing tonight but she supposes that maybe it's best to get it out of the way while she has the chance.

"Hi, I'm Eloise." She greet once the older witch has shut the door behind her and Elijah.

"Jonas Martin." the man points off down the hall, "Kitchen's that way. Elijah said you haven't eaten."

"Oh, you don't have to feed me. I'm just here to talk to Elijah." Her words fall on deaf ears and soon Eloise finds herself seated at the small kitchen table while Jonas throws a light meal together for her.

Elijah moves to sit between her and Jonas, eyes cool as he observes her. Neither of them speak until Jonas has placed a plate in front of her and has taken a seat at the table as well. It doesn't escape her notice that Luka is absent, likely having been sent off when Elijah told Jonas that Eloise would be coming over for an impromptu dinner. She takes a sip of her water but barely manages to pick at the food as she's too nervous to really eat anything. Thankfully, Elijah doesn't waste anyone's time and jumps right into questioning Eloise.

"Did you know the dagger wouldn't kill me when you gave it to Damon Salvatore?" He asks to which Eloise shrugs.

"I assumed it wouldn't. I used a spell to change the form of my athame but that doesn't mean I changed what it's made of. I hoped that since it wasn't a silver dagger the white ash alone wouldn't kill you."

"And why would you do a thing like that? I thought you were here to protect Elena and her loved ones." Elijah says as he regards her coolly.

"Protecting Damon from himself is just as important as protecting him from you," Eloise offers a cold smile. "Tomorrow when he realizes you're gone and that you've taken the dagger it'll be my turn to decide what our plans are going to be. You said you want Klaus dead? Awesome. When do you plan on killing him?"

Silence reigns in the kitchen for several long moments. Jonas and Elijah share a long look in the seconds that tick by before the witch slowly rises, leaves the kitchen, and returns moments with a framed picture that he hands over to Eloise. Jonas and Luka are quickly recognized but the young woman standing between them smiling like she hasn't got a care in the world isn't someone Eloise has ever met before. They're obviously family and if Eloise were a betting woman she'd say that the unfamiliar woman is Luka's sister. With careful movements Eloise hands the photo back to Jonas, who looks at it like it's something priceless. Who knows. Maybe it is. Eloise doesn't really have much of a connection to her family but she thinks that a few years ago she might have looked at any photos of them with the same type of reverence Jonas does.

"Klaus has my daughter Greta. She was always such an ambitious girl, so full of greatness, I never did anything to try and dampen it because I was always so proud of the witch she was becoming." Jonas puts the photo down. "Then one day she was just gone, called a few days later from a payphone in Albuquerque saying she was with Klaus and that she was where she wanted to be but... Greta's young. She doesn't know what type of man Klaus is, she's blinded by whatever he's promised her and her own ambition and I... I want to kill Klaus."

"I asked when you wanted to kill Klaus, not why." when neither man says anything Eloise sighs before she turns to Elijah and asks, "So what? You think you're going to kill Klaus the moment he rolls into town and play White Knight to a girl who doesn't want to be rescued? I'm gonna tell you how that's going to end for you; poorly."

"My brother is paranoid, he's spent the past thousand years convinced that no one is to be trusted, which makes it impossible for me to get close to him. Our hope is that as he completes the ritual there will be enough time for me to kill him while he is transitioning."

Eloise purses her lips and then says, "Do you honestly think you can kill him, though?"

The way he hesitates says everything despite the fact that he says, "I assure you, I will be the one to kill Klaus."

Leaning back in her chair allows Eloise a moment to gather her thoughts. Elijah may want to kill Klaus but he won't be able to do it. He's too noble for one, and despite the resentment he's clearly feeling towards Klaus at the moment there's no telling how loyal he is to Klaus despite it. Growing up, Eloise was always taught to put family above everything. Despite not considering herself part of their family and detesting some of the things they'd done Eloise would never raise her hands to her parents or siblings with the intention to kill, harm perhaps, but never kill... not unless the situation was one where Eloise had no other option. She understands the rage Elijah must be feeling but she can't find it in herself to actually believe he'd kill Klaus. But he thinks he will, doesn't he? So what should she do? Pretend to go along with it and tell her friends she's surprised when plans fall through? Help figure out an alternative plan should Elijah prove to her that he can't kill Klaus? Eloise doesn't actually want Klaus dead necessarily but will she have a choice? Eloise bites the inside of her cheek until she tastes iron.

"Look," she begins tentatively, "I'm not sure I believe you when you say you're going to kill Klaus but I agree that the moment to try would be just as the curse is breaking. The problem is that Klaus is going to need sacrifices and I don't really like the idea of handing over any of my people."

"I thought you were only here for Damon Salvatore." Elijah says, ignoring her comment on him not being able to kill Klaus.

Obviously, he's a little afraid he won't be able to either.

"I have a werewolf already waiting, Damon has the moonstone, and I'm working on a plan to keep Elena alive, so all we need now is a vampire." Eloise says.

"Who would you propose?"

"Someone you know Klaus doesn't like." Eloise offers a tight-lipped grin.

"And you would be willing to give Elena to Klaus?" Jonas asks to which Eloise shrugs.

"Ritual sacrifices don't scare me, I see no reason to not send Elena to Klaus when I can keep her alive after he kills her. The curse needs the doppelganger to die, doesn't say she needs to stay dead."

Technically, Elena does need to stay dead if the witch who cast the curse doesn't want any more hybrid abominations running around but they don't need to know that. Elijah might not be opposed but Eloise doesn't know Jonas and she certainly doesn't trust him. She's not going to tell them that in order for Klaus to propagate an entirely new species he needs Elena's blood. That's something Eloise and Klaus need to discuss before the ritual and with Elena present, she doesn't need the whole of the supernatural community trying to kill or kidnap Elena Gilbert as it'll end up being her problem when Damon inevitably asks for her help. The sooner she gets this curse broken the sooner the dust settles and she can go home.

"Besides, you'll have killed Klaus by then so what does it matter?" She asks and when neither man tries to contradict her Eloise smiles, "So I help you kill Klaus and you don't kill Damon."

"That's what you want?" Elijah asks, "Me not to kill the Salvatores?"

"Damon specifically, but sure, might as well add Stefan in there too. So long as they both walk away from this whole situation relatively unscathed I couldn't care less how you punish them for trying to kill you. Do what you please, just don't kill anyone." Eloise smiles a bit more genuinely, "Besides, I don't think they'll try and kill you again after tonight."

"You're fairly confident in your abilities." Jonas remarks.

"I wasn't taught to make compromises as a child. Either Damon and Stefan listen to me or they don't and I use my witchy wonder powers to make them do what I want anyway." Eloise says wit a shrug then she rises from her seat with a soft, "Speaking of Damon, I haven't heard from him so I should probably go back and make sure no one's done something they shouldn't."

Elijah nods and rises to follow her, "Of course, it's rather late."

"Thank you Mr. Martin." She says to the older witch who bids her goodbye.

With no reason left to stay Eloise turns and makes for the front door, Elijah at her heels, neither speaking even once they've reached the car and Eloise has opened the front door. It's a nice sort of silence, the kind Eloise had to grow up to appreciate. She basks in it for a moment before realizing she still has the dagger hidden under her seat, while it might not be smart to give the weapon back to Elijah it's not fair to keep it hidden either. Quickly opening her car door, Eloise kneels down and carefully reaches into the space between the floor and her seat in search of the dagger which she finds after seconds of blind searching. She looks at the dagger for a long moment as she contemplates whether or not this is going to get her killed but, deciding it's a risk worth taking, Eloise rises from her crouch and turns to present the blade to Elijah, whose eyes widen a great deal when he sees the dagger in her hand.

"You're giving this to me?" He asks, sounding vaguely awestruck.

Eloise supposes that this would be the first time anyone has ever willingly given him a weapon that could incapacitate him.

"Consider it a show of good faith."

"Good faith?"

"Sure, I give you the dagger and you try not to rip my heart out when this goes bad."

"I beg your pardon?"

Eloise rolls her eyes as she leans against her car. "Come on, Elijah, we both know you aren't going to kill Klaus."

"What makes you so sure?"

She doesn't have an answer. Not one that will make any sense to Elijah without her opening up about her family and the only people privy to that fiasco are Damon and Miranda. People she knows and trusts with her life. How can she tell Elijah that he's too _good_ to follow through with killing his brother? How would he ever believe something like that when she's known him all of, what, two days? He wouldn't believe her if Eloise told him that she knows because she understands the situation and that he'd ask questions to prove that she doesn't, which will lead to him looking into her past in more depth than he probably already has and- no. No, Eloise isn't going to think of her mom, or her dad, or Theodore and Beatrix. Not right now.

"I'm good at reading people." She tells him because it's safer than telling him about how she's wanted to turn her own siblings inside out and hang them from the trees that used to surround her family home

"I see."

Eloise smiles and says, "Text me when you have that vampire. I know a place we can stash them until Klaus comes."

"Of course," Elijah takes hold of her car door as she slides into the driver's seat, "Have a pleasant evening."

"You too, Elijah." She says before the Original gently closes her door behind.

He's gone seconds later, disappearing into the night or into the house Eloise isn't sure but she doesn't linger outside the Martin house. Opting instead to start up her car and begin the drive back to the Boarding house. Eloise spends the time driving to come up with something she's going to tell Damon. He's a hard headed fucker so whatever she comes up with has to be good. Using Elena's safety might help. She's only here because Damon wanted to keep Elena safe, while that stings a little bit Eloise isn't going to pretend that it doesn't give her a really good argument point. Oh, he'll be a pain for the next couple of days but at least Eloise will be able to handle their plans from now on. It helps that Elena seems to like her... in that hesitant sort of way that prey likes a predator. Elena liking her will make it easier for her to get close to Bonnie and Caroline, which in turn will make it easier to get them to listen. Bonnie is, after all, a powerful witch from a powerful bloodline but she's young still and young witches tend to be foolish witches. Eloise would know. She's done a lot of stupid shit over the years. Coming to Mystic Falls is either going to be the dumbest thing she's done or the best but at least she'll be walking out of this town alive. Eloise can't say the same for Bonnie.

Bonnie and Eloise haven't spoken so Eloise can't say anything about the witch, what she's heard is all pretty complementary seeing as it comes from Damon most of te time. The problem with Bonnie is that there's been no one around to teach her and it's affected how she perceives her magic. At least Eloise was taught by experienced witches who knew what they were messing with. Bonnie's learning as she's going and it's going to get her killed one of these days. Sighing, Eloise turns onto the road that'll lead her out of town toward the Boarding House. Maybe she can get some spare time to teach Bonnie some magic? Better yet, maybe Bonnie could come to Chicago for a week or two this summer and learn from her and Miranda? Never hurts to have a Bennett on your side and what better way to get them both what they want than to spend time in a magical witch shop? Eloise smiles at the thought. Some of her customers would eat Bonnie Bennett alive as she is right now, but by the end of her time at the shop? Well, Eloise is pretty confident she can teach Bonnie a thing or two.

The lights are off at the Boarding House when Eloise pulls up to the curb and parks. She doubts anyone is really asleep but she still sneaks back into the house as quietly as possibly in case people actually are trying to catch some shut eye. No one stops her in the foyer, or on her way to her room, and Damon isn't waiting on her bed when she flips on the light which is really weird because she kind of expected him to accuse her of something. Guess that'll have to wait until tomorrow. Humming softly under her breath Eloise begins stripping out of her clothes, balling them up and tossing them into the hamper she'd pestered Damon about when it had become apparent there wasn't anywhere to put her dirty clothes, and then she's changing into an overly large shirt before climbing into bed.

She's about halfway to dreamland when the light flips on.

"Where have you been?" Damon asks, flopping down beside her on the bed.

"Bargaining with Elijah. We're having a family meeting tomorrow by the way, I have words." Eloise says.

"Did you know the dagger wouldn't work?"

"I figured that it probably wouldn't."

Damon huffs, "This day just gets better and better."

"Why? What else happened?"

"My malicious hell-bitch of an ex-girlfriend manipulated me into letting her out of the tomb and then came prancing back into my life like she'd been invited."

"Katherine's here?" Eloise asks, peeling open an eyelid to stare at Damon.

He looks beyond irate, which is fair considering Katherine's back _and_ his plan for Elijah fell through. Eloise decides that she's never, ever going to tell him what she did and that she's going to call Elijah tomorrow and tell him to keep his mouth shut about it too. The last thing she needs right now is Damon being mad at her. Maybe after everything with Klaus blows over... but for now? No.

"I told her to leave." Damon says.

"Think she will?"

"And miss out on the chance to torment us all? Unlikely."

Eloise curls up to rest her head on Damon's shoulder and utters a soft, "At least we'll have a sacrifice for when Klaus gets here."

"Ooh, wishful thinking."

"I'm a vicious little thing aren't I?"

"Diabolical."

Soft laughter rumbles out of her before Eloise asks, "We having a sleepover? We can paint each others nails and everything."

"I was thinking we could just sleep."

"Sleep is good."

The light flickers out and he's returned just as Eloise processes Damon's absence from the bed and soon she's wrapped up in soft blankets and warm arms. Damon huffs as he rests his cheek on the top of her head so she can rest hers against his elbow and Eloise wonders if she smells weird or if he's just struggling to shut down his thoughts about the events of today long enough to catch some shut eye. She takes pity on him after about seven or so minutes of his irritating huffing and shifting around and mutters a few words in Latin that have Damon calm and quiet in seconds. She pokes him a few times to make sure he's asleep before she settles down for some shut-eye too.

When she wakes up the next morning to loud arguing Eloise can't find it in herself to be surprised. What she is surprised about however is the fact that she genuinely can't tell Elena and Katherine apart when she first sees them together. They're carbon copies of one another and if that weren't creepy enough the fact that they can flip-flop their personalities to match the other is also not something Eloise is all that fond of. Thankfully, Damon is quick to kill her in on why Katherine's here as Stefan and Damon head out for school. It's all pretty benign when you think about it; Katherine wants Klaus dead, the gang protecting Elena wants Klaus dead, and now they're all playing nice until after the ritual. Eloise can't find it in herself to care. Because Katherine may have all sorts of juicy information of the Originals but Eloise is the one who's going to be pulling strings from now on. Hopefully, Damon and the rest of Elena's gang fall in line.


	8. Chapter 8

Getting everyone, and by everyone Eloise means Katherine and Damon, wrangled into the living room isn't too hard. Katherine is oddly pleasant as she takes up residence on the sofa and Damon's not too keen on leaving Eloise and Katherine alone together in the same room so he follows after them looking like he's just swallowed a lemon. Which is fine by Eloise, if Damon's paranoia makes him easier to handle then so be it, Eloise would love to have an easy day after the shitstorm that was yesterday. Taking a seat in the plush chair next to the fireplace allows Eloise a good look at the expectant expressions on Katherine and Damon's faces. They both want her to get to the reason she's gathered them but Katherine looks far more pleased than Damon does, which isn't surprising considering they're not exactly friendly witch one another and Katherine loves seeing Damon squirm.

"Look, we can all reasonably agree that last night was an epic fail." She says after a moment. "Elijah's alive, and I'm happy about that, but it's clear that you and Stefan can't be making decisions anymore."

"Says who?"

"Says the thousand year old vampire I talked down from killing you and everyone else who was involved with his attempted murder last night!" Eloise snaps at the dark haired vampire lounging across from her.

"John's a piece of shit." is all he offers in response.

"And you're no longer in charge."

Across from her Katherine stretches out across the sofa, all seductive lines and wicked little half-smiles and Eloise finds herself wishing that she were as easily seductive as Katherine. The woman must bathe in sex appeal because there's nothing about her that isn't attractive. Honestly, if it came down to Elena or Katherine she'd probably go with Katherine.

"Klaus is coming to Mystic Falls no matter what, we know this, and I doubt any of us are going to be able to kill him so we need to figure something out that gets us all what we want. A happy hybrid original is a less murderous hybrid original."

Katherine snorts, a very condescending sound when paired with her scathing, "That's not going to work, _Ellie_."

"Forgive me, Katerina, but I've faced far more dangerous men and women than Klaus Mikaelson." she swallows the rage burning in her throat, "Besides, I'm not the one who ran away from him. I'm going to be the woman who gives him exactly what he wants."

Fingers curl around her throat, not dangerously tight but certainly tight enough to cause discomfort as Damon's face looms over her own. Unphased by Damon's inability to see past his irritating need to defend Elena, Eloise flicks her fingers at Damon - hand still resting lazily on the plush armrest - and watches coolly as his body goes sailing across the room and into a wall, the plaster splintering around the point of impact. She waits until he's up and glaring at her before saying anything.

"I didn't say we were going to kill Elena, Damon, but if it came down to it do you honestly think that I wouldn't have a plan to make sure she doesn't stay dead?" Damon's eyes narrow and Eloise presses her lips into a firm line before muttering, "And here I was thinking you were smarter than that."

Tinkling laughter fills the room, genuine and warm and familiar because Eloise spent an entire day entertaining Elena so she should fucking remember the sound of her laughter. Eloise is starting to understand why everyone's fooled by Katherine prancing around acting like Elena. A sharp look is sent the Doppelganger's way by both her and Damon but the brunette doesn't seem all that bothered, instead she eyes Eloise curiously then smiles as if she's realized something. Eloise can't help but feel a bit panicked despite knowing there's no way Katherine could know. No one in her family has ever directly interacted with the Doppelganger - before or after her transition - despite the powerful nature of her blood, and with as careful as her family is - had been? - there's no way Katherine would know who Eloise is... so why does she look like she's got everything figured out? Natural reaction? A way to make people think she's one or two or three steps ahead of the game?

"Where'd you find this one, Damon? Branching out a bit are we? Acquiring new _tastes_?" Katherine asks blithely, but Eloise hears the underlying tension and bitterness.

Katherine's territorial and she sees the Salvatore brothers as toys, while she may not play with them anymore she still considers them hers and what child likes other children playing with their toys without permission? Unfortunately for Katherine, Eloise knows all about territorial displays. Kather's threatened by her presence, Katherine is lashing out, Katherine thinks that she can bully and snip and rend the bond between Eloise and Damon but it's not going to work because Eloise is meaner and more possessive than Katherine has any hope of being.

"It's not like they can get any worse than you," Eloise remarks, casually giving the curly haired doppelganger a once over as she continues, "At least Elena has a genuine personality as opposed to whatever you're hiding behind."

Something feral lights in Katherine's eyes, paired with the slight upturning of her eyes and the sharpness of her cheekbones she looks almost like an enraged animal. It makes Eloise snort as she turns her attention to Damon, who's watching everything go down with a look of deep satisfaction.

"I have a plan for Klaus but I need some time to get everything together." She tells her friend.

"And does this plan involve sacrificing Elena?"

"Worse case scenario, yes."

Damon's face twists but he doesn't move to grab her again, "No one can ever say you're not honest about your intentions."

"I don't want to kill Elena but if I can't figure anything else out it might be the best way... If we can get into contact with Klaus we could negotiate a deal of some sort."

"Which involves what exactly? Sacrificing Elena on an intricately carved alter while dancing naked under the moonlight?" Damon bites out.

"I was going to say I'd see if I could get rid of the curse or in the event that that fails, negotiate Elena's life and freedom." Eloise says, calm in the face of his quiet rage.

One would think after all Katherine did to him and his brother Damon would stay away from the Doppelgangers. Elena's not a bad person but doppelgangers aren't meant to live a long, fulfilling life. Being a supernatural occurrence whose blood can be used in very powerful magic doesn't allow for grand feats of happiness or whatever, which is unfortunate and part of the reason Eloise does't just want to have to kill Elena... or, you know, leave her dead. Killing her isn't exactly the issue, it's the staying dead part that Eloise is a little leery about considering Elena's been nothing but nice to her and is apparently a hell of a lot better than Katherine. Eloise has no problem killing Katherine. Of course, none of this means she'll stick around if shit hits the fan. She'll negotiate for them, bring Elena back for them, but if any of the Scooby Gang decide they want to fuck with the Mikaelson family then Eloise is out and they're on their own. End of discussion.

"I don't see why we can't just kill Klaus." Damon says as he crosses his arms over his chest like an angry child.

"Ever heard of something called a sire line?" Eloise asks, recalling the rather juicy bit of information Miranda had sent her.

"No."

"Well basically it means that should one of the Originals _die_ die then the rest of their line will die with them. So let's say you killed Klaus, what happens if you come from his sire line? You've essentially slaughtered an entire group of innocent people who haven't done shit to you as well as you're own little group of friends. Kind of defeats the point of making enemies doesn't it?" Eloise asks when Damon's face shifts from the ominous promise of violence to something very akin to dread.

They can't kill Klaus. Well, technically, they _could_. Eloise just doesn't know how or which sire line Damon and all of her other vampire friends are part of, and knowing their luck Damon's tied in with Klaus. Could Eloise break the sire line? No, not by herself in any case and not without a shit ton of power behind her. That's not the question, the real question is whether or not she would and the answer is no. This is the only way Eloise can ensure Damon and the rest of them won't do anything stupid. All she needs is a little time to convince Klaus that he needs Elena alive for his hybrids and then hopefully all of this tension just kind of smooths over after a few hundred years or so. Eloise drums her fingers against the armrest and wonders whether or not Elijah would be any help in figuring out how best to negotiate with his brother. From what Eloise has heard Elijah's the calmer of the two, more level headed or something of that ilk, which means Klaus will be ten times more difficult to talk to without it somehow resulting in violence. It's part of the reason she'd like to get into contact with him as soon as possible... Which leads her to a possible spell that might be able to help her locate the hybrid.

"So you want to negotiate with Klaus Mikaelson?" Katherine asks bitterly, "It'll never work. He's too paranoid to listen to anything you have to say and too full of himself to boot."

Eloise bites back the truly nasty retort on her tongue but manages a waspish smile as she says, "Maybe. But I'm sure he's dying to get his hands on you, Katerina."

And Katherine's sudden, desperate scramble is halted by the invisible force that keeps her tethered to the couch. Eloise and Damon watch as she tries to lunge for either of them, only making it a few inches before being yanked back to the couch where she's left panting and near desperate. It's understandable considering the past five hundred years of her immortal life she spent running are about to be for nothing. Fangs and delicate blood vessels snap out as Katherine attempts one more attack on Eloise in the hopes that her death will mean the releasing of her person from the couch and just like that Eloise feels nothing but distant pity for the half-mad creature currently struggling against her magic.

"I put that spell on you this morning," Eloise tells the vampire after a moment, "all I needed was for you to settle somewhere for more than a few minutes."

Katherine's rage turns to true fear as she twists to look at Damon as she says, "Please, Damon! You can't let her do this! Klaus will kill all of you! Please!"

"You're sure Klaus wants her?" Damon asks, ignoring Katherine's pleading and promises and eventual threats.

"Wouldn't you?" Eloise sighs quietly before saying, "I don't know if it'll be enough to save Elena outright but at the very least Klaus will be willing to talk to me when I turn Katherine over.

"You're just going to pop over for breakfast with Katherine and offer her up to Klaus and hope he's feeling chummy?" Damon asks, unimpressed.

"I'm just going to pop over for breakfast with Katherine as soon as I find him to offer her up and hope he's feeling charitable."

"We're going to die."

"When you've got skin in the game, you stay in the game, but you don't get a win unless you play in the game." Eloise tells the dark haired vampire currently regarding her with cold indifference.

Katherine's responding laugh is shrill, full of panic, and apparently more than Damon can handle at the moment before he snarls before speeding over to the curly haired doppelganger. She barely has time to realize he's moved before she's slumping back against the cushions, neck twisted at a truly disturbing angle. When she's not awake Katherine almost looks like a decent sort of human being, she'll always be lovely but when she's not awake she's not snarling or smirking or ridiculing people so her features don't twist up in the weird way that makes her look vicious. Unconscious, Katherine Pierce looks like anyone else. A faint twang of guilt forces Eloise to look away from the Doppelganger and back to Damon.

"Miranda's looking for a way to contact Klaus but I can always ask Elijah for a favor." She says to which Damon rolls his eyes.

"I doubt he'd be willing to help us after last night."

"Considering we've already talked I think he's more than willing to help."

Damon makes a noise in the back of his throat which earns him a sharp look from Eloise. Clearly he doesn't like the thought of Elijah being part of their group but he doesn't have much of a choice. Elijah might not kill Klaus but Eloise doubts he'd let anything get too bloody between his brother and her people so long as they're all within the bounds of their deals. Klaus wants his curse broken, which is totally understandable, and Eloise has always been one to root for the underdog. So, ok, yeah, maybe she thinks the whole superiority mentality witches tend to have over other supernatural beings is shit, maybe she's trying to do some justice for the vampires and werewolves and whoever the fuck else have been stomped on and abused by witches, and she's totally for fucking with pissy old dead hags who think it's fine to fuck with people as long as they're not other witches. It's bogus. Complete and utter horse shit but witches aren't exactly raised to be humble. Eloise is self aware, ok, she knows her faults. Aggressive, a little too mean, a little too willing to cause serious damage to people, quick to anger but slow to forgive, and prideful. Shit, is she prideful. But never once in Eloise's life has she ever thought she was any better than the other supes roaming the world... Tends to happen when you're a murderer. Kind of hard to judge things that kill to survive when you yourself are just as guilty of taking a life. Eloise doesn't understand why most other witches ignore that.

Something nudges her fingers and when Eloise looks she finds a glass of bourbon being pressed into her grip. She takes the drink from Damon with a smile and sips at it while Damon checks on Katherine and returns to his seat.

"So, you and Elijah."

"We spoke yesterday. He's willing to help so long as I'm the one calling the shots."

"And why are you calling the shots again?"

Eloise stares at Damon for a long few seconds before saying, "Because you called me and because if you do this your way Elena's going to end up worse off in the long run. I won't lie to you and say I approve of your relationship with Elena but I'm not one for mindless violence. If I can help you help Elena, I'll do it, but only for so long. With me making the decisions there's less of a chance of not only innocent people dying but myself."

"Self preservation? Really?"

"Don't try and shame me, Damon, I'm not the dumb ass who tried to kill an Original Vampire." Eloise rises and finishes off her drink, pressing the glass into Damon's chest with a little more force than necessary. "My goal is to make sure as many people walk out of this as safely as possible, ok? You and your bullshit would have only gotten someone hurt in the end and we both know it... At least this way I can keep you and me and everyone else we care about safe."

"You're such a bitch."

"Takes one to know one." Eloise looks at Kather's slumped form. "Help me get her to the basement? I think some desiccation might actually do her some good."

And that's how Eloise finds herself spelling a locked cell door to prevent anyone from letting Katherine out before Eloise has set up a meeting with Klaus. Damon seems all too happy to watch as Eloise seals his ex into the cell but Eloise doesn't blame him. After all the shit Katherine's put him through Eloise can't say she feels much pity for the vampire. A quick glance shows that Katherine is still sleeping, slumped against the chair Damon had dumped her in and still looking absolutely fabulous. With a roll of her eyes Eloise finishes up her spell and steps away from the door. She's quick to blow out her candle, smiling as the hum of power flares up around the door. At least this way no one will be able to get in or out of that cell, meaning Katherine will be forced to spend the next couple of days thinking about her actions and what's going to happen to her when Klaus gets here. A form of torture where Eloise gets to keep her hands somewhat clean. It's the least Katherine deserves anyway.

A sharp ping makes her jump before she goes to pull her phone out of her pocket. The number's unknown but it doesn't take long for her to figure out who just texted her.

_I've located a vampire, where would you like me to deliver him? _

Eloise excuses herself from Damon, who merely waves her off and disappears, and sends him an address to put in his GPS.

Putting a werewolf and a vampire in the same room together might not be the best idea but Eloise has no problem cramming one of them in the cage. Probably the vampire. At least he'll survive without food. Kind of. They'll probably have to feed the poor bastard before the sacrifice if Eloise can't break the curse on her own but that's a bridge they'll cross when they get to it.

The drive to the camper is a long one and when Eloise pulls up next to the contraption Elijah is already waiting for her by the front door, a body slumped at his feet. He offers a thin sort of smile as Eloise makes her way closer and offers to get the door for her when she's close enough by reaching for the handle. Eloise stops him before he can open up the door and potentially put them in harms way. The werewolf inside hadn't taken too kindly to being trapped so it's unlikely she's going to let them enter the camper without some sort of a fight.

"I've got a werewolf inside." Eloise says before turning to the door, palm pressing firm against the metal as she mutters a few phrases in Latin under her breath.

When she's certain that the werewolf won't be able to escape she steps aside and motions for Elijah to go ahead of her because realistically he's the only one of them that can walk away from being stabbed in the throat with a shard of broken mirror or something. It's not a piece of mirror that the werewolf attacks them with, instead it's a nasty looking knife that flashes as it catches the light. Eloise probably wouldn't have made it, the speed the werewolf's moving at is epic, but Elijah isn't her and he grabs hold of the werewolf girl's wrist without so much as flinching at the knife that stops mere centimetres from the center of his chest. There's a moment in which the werewolf stares at Elijah with horrified eyes before the vampire rips the knife out of her hand and sends the werewolf flying into the bars of the cage, which are still spelled. Her shrieks of pain fill the camper for a few seconds before she manages to rip herself away from the cage and to the other end of the camper, where she cowers against the wall holding her charred hands to her chest.

"Jules, is it? I seem to remember you leading the attack against Damon Salvatore the other evening." Elijah remarks rather blandly, causing the werewolf to drop her eyes and flinch further back.

"Stop it. There's nothing she can do right now, let her have her desperation." Eloise says as she hauls the temporarily dead vampire to the cage where she locks him up, then she turns to Jules. "You touch this cage to let him our or you try to kill him and I will turn your organs to mush."

"A rather slow way to die I should think." Elijah says.

"Takes me a few minutes to liquefy each organ and I normally start with the ones that won't kill someone immediately." Eloise says and Jules blanches a sort of terrible ash-white before she disappears into the bathroom, presumably to escape from the vampire and witch keeping her hostage. When Eloise hears the water in the sink begin to run she turns to Elijah. "Ready to go? I need to find out a way to contact Klaus?"

Elijah watches her for a long moment, Eloise thinks she sees something akin to panic dance across his features before he's wearing a mask of indifference. "You wish to speak with my brother?"

"Well, yeah," Eloise exits the camper but keeps talking, "I think his whole curse is a shit way to punish someone for something they didn't do and getting rid of it would not only help him but help me appease him... kind of. You know, better to be the right hand of the devil than be in his way, or something."

The camper door shuts with a heavy thump as Elijah says, "Klaus has many witches at his disposal, all of whom he's had try and break his curse, why would a Brathwaite be of any use to him?"

Blood turns to ice in her veins.

Eloise hasn't used her last name in years, has rarely ever given anyone one anyway but when she's been forced to she always calls herself Eloise Jordan and calls it a day. Jordan is a pretty common name and it carries the added benefit of not sounding suspicious like Smith tends to. Point is, she hasn't used her name in years. Eloise paid good money to make it so that anyone looking for her or trying to find out about her would have one hell of a difficult time. Obviously, she'd never thought she'd run into a curious Original vampire in a killer suit. Eloise swallows the lump in her throat and turns to Elijah.

"How much do you know?" She asks, because she's not going to play coy with a man who could know every little thing about her, about her family, about what she can do.

"Not enough, I'll admit. My contacts have had a very hard time finding anything about you worth knowing." Elijah says, tone casual, "I had them begin looking into you the day you released Stefan from the tomb but aside from quite a bit of information involving your current educational status and your business there hasn't been much for them to find... Until this morning, of course, they gave me a name."

Which means it's only a matter of time before he finds out the rest.

So what does she do now? Come clean and tell him everything? It would probably be for the best considering Eloise's family history and her own history isn't squeaky clean. Elijah may be more willing to continue dealing with her if she's honest but that's not why Eloise is actually considering talking to him about this... The truth of the matter is this: Elijah found out, Eloise doesn't know how he did but he did. He knows her name and it won't be long before other people in the supernatural community figure out that there's a Brathwaite in Mystic Falls, in Chicago. What does that mean for her? Not much aside from the fact that she left home to escape her family and all of the shit people they were involved with. While her family won't - might now? hard to say after the way they left things - kill her, others will certainly try to. Could telling Elijah offer her protection? Could it save her? Eloise is a powerful witch in her own right but even powerful witches can be murdered. Slaughtered, really. Eloise doubts the people who come after her would kill her quick.

"Maybe this isn't a conversation we should be having here? Know someplace quiet where no one will overhear us?"

"I have an apartment in Whitmore."

"Kind of risky don't you think? What with Augustine being there and all?"

"Augustine? I'm unfamiliar with them."

Another thing they're going to have to discuss apparently. But not here, somewhere quiet.

"Ok, well, can we go to your apartment then and talk? We have a lot we need to discuss and I'd feel better doing it somewhere we can have some privacy." Eloise says, uncomfortable but unwilling to be too obvious about it.

Elijah nods slowly before gesturing to his car, "I'll drive. You can tell me about Augustine on the way."

With a baleful glance at her own car Eloise makes for the Lincoln MKZ parked off to the side of the drive path. It's a nice car don't get her wrong, but Eloise is a little hesitant to get in a car with someone who might try and kill her. She has to remind herself that Elijah hasn't killed her yet and she's already done some pretty iffy stuff that might have made him want to. So at the very least she's safe until they get to the apartment. Once she's in the car Elijah guides them back out to the main road and begins the trip toward Whitmore. Every once in a while he'll send her a glance but Eloise tries not to think about it too much. While satisfaction might have brought the cat back it's curiosity still got it killed. Eloise doesn't want to look into the hooded glances and wondering expressions too much because the thought of Elijah being - maybe, kind of, hopefully? - interest in her makes it hard to concentrate on anything other than the concerning pounding of her heart. Besides, she's too embarrassed to look at him so what's the point of trying?

"Scared?" Elijah's voice is warm, amused even, and it nearly makes Eloise jump out of her fucking skin.

"Hardly." She says and does her voice sound breathy? Please don't let it be breathy?

"You've nothing to fear from me, Miss Brathwaite." Elijah says as he turns onto another road and then he offers her a way out, "I believed you mentioned an Augustine?"

And so Eloise falls into telling him about the rumors. About the society of people at Whitmore college snatching unsuspecting vampires off of the street and experimenting on them. She'd met Damon because of Augustine. He'd been hunting for some food, trying to curb the urges that twisted fuck Wes had left him with, and Eloise just happened to get caught in the middle. Being a witch had saved her that night and somehow they'd kicked it off well enough to remain friends. She'd been fifteen then. Feels like a lifetime ago. But Eloise doesn't tell Elijah that, but she does tell him about the vampires being experimented on and how Augustine is trying to find a way to eradicate the species. After she finishes talking they're closer to Whitmore and Elijah's knuckles are white from the grip he has on the steering wheel and it makes Eloise feel... good. Because if Elijah's angry then maybe something's going to be done about Augustine, maybe no more innocent people will end up dead because of them. Who knows. By the time they roll up to an outrageously expensive looking apartment complex Elijah has promised to look into Augustine and Eloise is feeling a little better about where the two of them stand. Hopefully, it won't change in the next few hours. And with a heavy sigh Eloise exits the vehicle to follow Elijah into the building, aware of the fact that in the next few minutes she could very well end up having her entire carefully crafted life go up in flames.


	9. Chapter 9

Elijah Mikaelson's apartment is... _fancy_, to say the least. All slick, shiny surfaces carefully paired with older- but no less shiny - decorative items that were probably made in the early 1700s. Eloise feels uncomfortable standing among the pristine white furniture, because she's pretty sure that if she actually steps into the room she's going to get it dirty. Like, it looks like one of those fancy shmancy apartments that people don't actually live in but home and garden magazines like to use for their advertisements? You know, the ones with the open floor plans, ridiculously big windows overlooking an equally ridiculous view, and not-white furniture paired with sleek silver tables covered in pretty vases and the like? _Fancy_. Eloise fights not to kick her shoes off at the door so she can follow Elijah into the kitchen without feeling like a heathen.

"Nice view?" Eloise winces at the questioning tone of her voice as she leans against the front of the shiny granite island.

"It's tolerable," he says it like it's not one of the most expensive views in Whitmore, "I think you'd much prefer the view of Paris."

"I'll take your word for it." Eloise says just as Elijah places an unrealistically clean looking glass in front of her, it's filled with water and perfect square ice cubes and Eloise is thankful for the mild distraction from her discomfort.

"Have you ever left the country, Miss Brathwaite?" Elijah asks as he slowly drifts to the living room.

Eloise follows, grip firm around her glass, and says, "My parents used to take my siblings and I to Puglia when I was younger to visit my grandparents but, uh, that was a long time ago."

The reminder of why she's here makes Elijah's easygoing grin harden a bit but he doesn't look too hostile from what Eloise can see. Just to be sure, Eloise puts as much space between herself and Elijah as possible in the hopes that it'll give her more reaction time. It's probably a fool's hope but Eloise seriously doubts Elijah's going to try and tear out her throat in the next few minutes.

"You seem very fond of your family." Elijah says, testing turbulent waters with soft words to see what kind of reaction he's going to get.

Shrugging, Eloise says, "Sometimes. I come from a very long line of powerful witches with views that are a little more, um, out of the box than most."

"I've never heard of the Brathwaite family."

"You wouldn't have, for the most part my family did their own thing. Stayed in the shadows, avoided other supernatural beings, kept to themselves, and we didn't have a recognized coven name to help us fly under the radar, so I wouldn't expect you or anyone in your family to have heard of us." Eloise says, which is only kind of a lie.

Her coven hadn't had a recognized name but within the coven they'd jokingly refereed to themselves as the Triskelion. Because aside from the symbol representing the motion of action, progress, cycles, and the like, it also - in it's own way - represented the children born into the coven. Three children to represent the mind, the body, and the soul, three children born to each family to represent the continuation of the craft and all the knowledge accumulated over the generations. It sounded really cool when she and the younger members of her family were growing up. Now? Eloise thinks they might have been more aware of the situation than a child has any right to be. She takes a sip of her water to hide her frown.

"Is there a reason your family keeps to the shadows? You make it seem as though the majority of the supernatural community is a danger to you." Elijah says, eyes narrowing slightly.

"I mean, they kind of are. My family specializes in Expression and most witches don't even see it as a form of magic, everyone else just kind of fears what we can do."

"Expression? You're a practitioner of dark magic?" Elijah asks and the tone of his voice is sharp enough to slice through stone.

Eloise holds up a finger, "I'm gonna stop you right there. Expression is a manifestation of a witch's will, it's not inherently dark. When you use Expression you're puling energy from other dimensions and it enhances the power you've already got while giving you a little bit extra. Witches who've never dealt with Expression have such a hard time with it because they're usually turning to it as a last resort, you know, to hurt people? Negative emotions tend to feed into dark magic and when it's paired with the power Expression can give it doesn't end well."

"And you're saying you can control that kind of power?"

"I," Eloise glances to the side then turns back to Elijah, "I wouldn't say I'm a master at anything and there's really no controlling Expression but... Look, my coven's Leaders taught us incredible self control, they also had our parents teach us different forms of magic so that we could better understand the situations and emotions involved with them. I can use Expression to regrow forests that were cut down centuries ago or I could use it to slaughter every human in Chicago in a matter of days. I wouldn't, but I could."

"By yourself? Seems a little irresponsible to teach children how to do such things." Elijah says before he pauses, eyes drifting toward the window for a moment before cutting back to Eloise, "Why are you no longer with your coven if it's so dangerous for you to be away from them?"

It's a valid question but not one Eloise is totally comfortable sharing. But she decides to anyway because getting it over with is better than leaving it a secret between them that could one day be used against her. Eloise plucks at a loose thread in her shirt.

"Uh, when I turned fifteen one of our coven leaders died, my great grandmother actually, and after she died the coven started performing this ritual to find the next one - there always has to be three right? So we needed to find the third one pretty quick, or that's what everyone in the coven thought. Our coven leaders weren't chosen because of age or experience, they were chosen based on their power and when one dies the thought is that another witch's powers will grow stronger." Eloise licks her lip and decides not to get into the intricacies and politics of stepping into that dreaded position of coven authority. "So, yeah, we performed the ritual, sacrificed some woman who didn't do anything to us and, I don't know, things didn't go the way I expected them to."

"It was you." Elijah states to which Eloise nods.

"Yeah. It shouldn't have been, I wasn't ready for that kind of responsibility and I was already questioning some of the actions of the coven and I just... Look, I did a lot of, uh, questionable things when I was with the coven, a lot of them I'm not proud of and some I'm afraid to admit that I don't regret or feel bad about. The relationship I have with my family is pretty complicated but I love them, you know? I just didn't see myself being what they needed me to be."

"And now? Do you have the same reservations?" Elijah asks, fingers drumming against the soft cream fabric of his chair.

Eloise shrugs and slowly responds with a firm, "I wouldn't kill an innocent woman for a ritual or anything, but no. Getting away from the coven? Seeing the thing's I've seen and doing what I've done? I can't say that I would be an amazing coven leader but I think I'd be more suited to the role now than I would have been then."

Elijah nods slowly, takes in everything she's said, and then asks, "Why have you not returned to your family then?"

"Honestly? We didn't part on great terms, first of all, and I also really like my life now. I'm not surrounded by my family members night and day, I'm not obligated to participate in rituals that don't sit well with me, and I'm not responsible for fifty people. While I could go back, it's not something I want right now."

She's only twenty-two anyway. Stepping into the role of a coven leader wouldn't have happened until she turned eighteen or nineteen at the very least, so it's not like she's left the coven hanging. They've probably already elected someone else. Eloise couldn't have been the only person whose power influx came with the death of Florence Brathwaite. And on the off chance that it did - which she hopes isn't the case because _fuck_ \- there are other leaders, which means that when they die someone else will step into their places. Triskelions always have three spirals. Should Eloise decide later on that she wants to return home and reconcile with everyone she can, probably, but not yet, not when she's so incredibly content with her life and where she's at in it.

"Is that why you're so willing to help my brother?"

Eloise shakes her head as she says, "Not really. While I think the curse itself if pretty shitty, I won't delusion myself into thinking I have any real sentimental attachment tying myself to Klaus."

"Then why help him? Or myself for that matter?" Elijah asks.

"Damon's my person. I don't care what happens to the rest of them but Damon is mine, and the rest of the Mystic Falls Scooby Gang are Damon's. I'm just doing what little damage control I can to make sure none of my people end up on the chopping block."

Elijah stares for a long moment, coffee bean eyes darker with the barely there smears of blue under his eyes. He looks older than his age, which can't be much older than mid-to-late twenties? There's a very distinct wrinkling around his mouth and at the corners of his eyes that aren't, you know, _bad_, they just hint at him having lived a rough life before the transition. Which can't be far off. How old is he? A thousand and some years older than her? Elijah would have been born in a time period where you had to fight and labor just to have a chance at surviving to an old age. So yeah, he looks a little more mature, a little older, but Eloise can confidentially place him somewhere in his twenties despite the age the bags under his eyes and the barely-there lines try to add on... or maybe it's just the hair.

He has terrible fucking hair.

"How did you meet Damon Salvatore might I ask?" Elijah offers one of those I'm-genuinely-not-understanding-why-you-give-a-shit-but-I'm-trying smiles and tacks on a slow, "He seems to inspire a great deal of loyalty despite his more, shall we say, aggressive tendencies?"

The accent totally makes up for the bad hair.

"We met not long after I got away from the coven. We ran into each other and Damon offered me a place to stay, I wasn't in a position to say no, we just clicked." Eloise says, giving a horribly watered down version of what actually happened that evening.

"I see."

Eloise is fairly certain he doesn't but smartly keeps her mouth shut. Elijah isn't accusing her of anything, he's not accusing Damon of anything, and so she's going to let this entire awkward conversation slide without a fuss. The less fuss either of them make of this situation the better. Besides, Elijah doesn't seem too concerned about her relationship with Damon. In fact, he seems too unconcerned. Like he doesn't really care about her relationship with Damon but her answer seems to have proven something to him. Eloise begins spinning the amethyst ring around her thumb to keep herself from tucking both hands beneath her thighs - a nervous habit she's had since she was a kid. For a moment Eloise wonders if Elijah's got any weird habits that have stuck with him since his youth but quickly brushes the thought away. Elijah's been alive too long and he's too put together, so any nervous ticks he might have retained have probably been brutally uprooted or smothered so as not to possibly ruin the image he presents. Dangerous men in suits don't bite their nails or crack their knuckles so why would he?

"What do you plan to do with Klaus?" Elijah asks and the question catches her off guard.

"I'm sorry?"

"Klaus, what do you plan to do with him?"

"Uh, well, I was hoping you could help me with that. You know? A favor for a friend kind of thing?"

"Is that what we are? Friends?" there's something about the look he's giving her that Eloise isn't really prepared to analyse in depth.

"Why not? I bond quick." realizing what she's just admitted, because she does bond quickly and Elijah's starting to become something more than just a stranger she's afraid of, Eloise begins back tracking, "I mean, you know, we've already kidnapped people together so I guess there's nothing more friendship inducing than that? Or maybe since I gave you the dagger you might be willing to help me out just because you feel like it? Or maybe, also, because you don't actually plan on killing Klaus and I think we can all find a way to work this out? You know, together? Teamwork, yay..." Eloise babbles, embarrassed and flustered and maybe even a little panicky because _why is he looking at me like that? _

"What do you want from me, Miss Brathwaite?"

"Do you have Klaus' number or maybe an email address? Some way for me to contact him at least?"

Elijah leans back in his chair, the dark charcoal of his suit a stark contrast to the lighter fabric framing him. It's symbolism, Eloise knows it. Fortunately for her, Elijah doesn't look like he's going to fly off the handle and start ripping into her for suggesting that he contact Klaus for her when she knows how he currently feels about the hybrid. It's nice to know that that delicious suit- and the rest of the house - isn't about to be bathed in her blood. Eloise swallows the lump in her throat as subtly as she can so that Elijah doesn't pick up on her nerves. Though, something tells her she's already failed at that. Because tensions only grow the longer Elijah remains quiet and even he finally does speak Eloise feels like she's about to burst at the seams.

"I'm afraid I'm no longer in Klaus' inner circle so I'm uncertain of how to contact him, but I believe I know someone who can." Elijah turns murky coffee-bean eyes on her and continues with a vaguely threatening, "I'll reach out to him for you on one condition."

"Condition?"

"Yes, I would like a favor in return." Elijah says.

"OK? Like, is this going to be some sort of weird hush-hush favor that's going to end up with me in a hole or...?" Eloise moves her hands out in front of her, swirling them in a way that suggests she wants him to finish her sentence but is more than willing to assume.

Oddly enough, it makes Elijah laugh.

"No, nothing of the sort. I merely require a magical favor."

"Depending on your favor I probably could still end up six feet under."

The look he gives her speaks of fond amusement. Eloise only knows because it was the same look her father used to give her when she did something he found too humorous to be mad about. Only, this look isn't the exact same as the one her father sued to paint across his features so easily, but they're similar enough that Eloise brushes off the prickling at the base of her skull and folds her arms over her stomach.

"Klaus took something from me, I'd like you to do a locator spell."

"Uh, what kind of something?"

"Does it matter?"

Eloise gives him an unimpressed look before saying, "You've spent enough time with witches that you should know the answer to that already. If the thing he took is inanimate then it's going to require different things than finding something that's, you know, alive." his silence is more than answer enough so Eloise sighs through her nose to get rid of some of the tension, "I'll need a map and some of your blood."

"Excuse me?"

"For your locator spell."

"So we have a deal I take it."

"You get me Klaus and I'll find whoever it is your looking for." Eloise promises.

Because it can't be too difficult. Eloise comes from a very long line of powerful witches, the magic of her ancestors flows through her veins and bends to her will. Having used Expression for years before - and a little bit after - her separation from the coven has made Eloise all the more away of the limits and risks of certain spells, it's one of the reasons dark magic doesn't scare her. Finding someone for Elijah Mikaelson can't be that difficult. As Elijah rises to hopefully go find a map or contact his informant Eloise makes for the kitchen because it'll be the easiest place in the house to clean should things get messy. A knife is gathered from the block next to the stove and placed on the island along with a fluffy white hand towel that Elijah's going to have to replace. Once everything's set up Eloise sits at the island and waits for Elijah, who comes strolling in a few moments later with a tense look and a large map under his arm. When he spreads it across the island Eloise sees that it's a world map.

She traces her fingers over the Netherlands before pulling away to straighten out the map.

"Roll up your shirt sleeve, please." Eloise says as she takes up the knife.

Thankfully, Elijah doesn't protest. Shucking off his suit jacket he lays the fabric over the back of the chair before unbuttoning his cuff and carefully rolling the sleeve up to his elbow. He ends up looking like a model off of Vogue or something and it's totally unfair that he's _that_ good looking. Huffing lowly under her breath, Eloise grabs hold of Elijah's wrist so she can pull it over the map and drags the blade of the knife across the flesh of his outer arm.

Blood, warm and red and glistening spills across the map. A small puddle of red that sits over the Atlantic ocean like some ominous warning. When his arm stops bleeding Eloise hands him the towel and puts away the knife before leaning over the map to begin muttering in Latin. She watches, transfixed, as the blood begins pulling toward America's East Coast, creeping across New Hampshire and into Vermont before compressing itself into New York. Eloise glances at Elijah and finds him staring at the spot in... disbelief? Horror? Sadness? It's too hard to tell but she knows the emotion on his face isn't exactly a happy one.

"Are you certain the spell is correct?"

"I just asked it to show me where the person you lost is, if you want something more specific I'm going to need a bigger map and more specific information." Eloise says.

"My brother may have a witch hiding them from me."

"Who?"

"My siblings. Klaus has them daggered... he told me he tossed them into the sea."

"And you believed him?" at the reprimanding look Elijah shoots her, Eloise sighs, "Look, it's possible a witch is cloaking your siblings but I can still find them."

"How?"

Eloise rolls her eyes and says to the Original, "By finding the only place a tracking spell can't find? It's literally like the easiest way around a cloak."

"I didn't think witches could do that."

"Most witches are taught conventional magic, getting around a cloaking spell is practically child's play." Eloise carefully folds the map up and tosses it into the trash.

It'll be touch and go as there are probably witches hiding themselves from people who aren't Elijah Mikaelson, but it should be easy to narrow down places he doesn't have to visit. Getting around a cloaking spell may be child's play but it's not an exact science, Eloise doesn't tell Elijah that though because he's already questioned her ability once today and she's not cool with that. In fact, she hates when people ask her whether or not her spells work or not as it feels like an attack on her person. Prideful. Eloise knows her faults at least.

"But of course, I shouldn't expect anything less of a witch who practices Expression." Elijah retorts, tone biting and scathing under all that accented charm.

"Tone it down, Judgmental Joe." Eloise glares, "I'm not all powerful, ok? So cut back on the attitude. I'm just good at figuring out loopholes, any witch worth her salt could do the same."

Seemingly chastised Elijah nods once before turning and making for another part of the house. Eloise rolls her eyes but doesn't linger on the bitterness rising in her chest. Elijah can think whatever he wants about her. It wouldn't be the first time another supernatural being has reacted poorly to her using Expression. A powerful energy source it may be, but not one easily manipulated. Most witches end up going crazy, or getting pulled so far down the rabbit hole that there's no helping them later on down the road when they realized they fucked up. One of the reasons Eloise's coven had been so big is because the more people aware of how Expression works the more people there are to help guide you through a spell or ritual, which really helps when people begin slipping up.

Eloise wipes down the island, tosses the soiled towel into the sink, and waits for Elijah to return with another map. The fact that he seems to have so many is wild but not totally unreasonable. Eloise knows a vampire from Seattle that keeps all sorts of things in her house in case one of her witches needs something, because it's better to be save than sorry. Is Elijah the same? Does he believe in keeping things like maps and candles around for his witches in case he needs them to do a spell? Or had he been planning on using one of the Martins to find Klaus? Eloise doesn't know, pretends she doesn't care, and sits herself on one of the padded stools just as Elijah comes back into the kitchen with a handful of travel maps.

"Will these suffice?" He asks as he places them out on the island in front of her.

There are three, all of them perfectly folded and sporting a picture of a plant or an animal of some sort. Eloise plucks one off the pile and spreads it out, looking at the little cities and roads and other assorted landmarks peppered across the paper. It'll work. Silently, she reaches for the knife and Elijah holds his arm out to her so that she can spill his blood again. Only this time she begins chanting out a couple of words in Old Dutch. The spell is one her family has carried around for centuries. Ever since the middle ages when one of her ancestors developed the spell in order to find one of his enemies. Or something. Eloise never paid much attention to her family history, too enthralled with learning spells and participating in rituals she'd thought were fascinating at the time.

Red spreads across the map as she chants. Occasionally she's forced to draw more blood from Elijah's body so that the spell can continue doing its work but he doesn't seem too mind so Eloise doesn't feel too bad about it and by the time the spell's been cast all but five small circles of the map have been covered in a thick blanket of red. Eloise goes to put the knife in the sink and wash her hands before pulling out her phone. She doesn't want blood all over the screen ok? Sew her. Eloise takes her seat the island again and types out the first location in the search bar.

"What are you doing?" Elijah asks as he peers over her shoulder.

"Trying to cut back on the places you need to visit." Eloise says.

"That's unnecessary." Elijah tells her.

"Why? I've already ruled out one." She says, unless Klaus has a thing for little old lady florists.

"We can't say who lives in any of the houses, while one or two may be more fitted to hide my sibling's I can't risk Klaus catching wind of us knowing where they are." Elijah's tone doesn't allow for arguments.

Eloise turns to look at him, "So what do you want to do?"

"Klaus will come for Elena once he catches wind of another doppelganger. He'll want to keep our siblings close so I doubt he'll leave them behind."

"Still a mighty big risk to take isn't it? What if he does leave them?"

Elijah smiles at her and Eloise thinks it's more predatory than reassuring.

"Then I'll simply have to remember the locations of the map and have a few of my people look into them while he's too far away to do anything about it."

"Right. Got it," Eloise takes a picture of the map and then proceeds to toss it in the trash, when she looks back at Elijah she decides to change the subject, "What are you going to do about Augustine?"

"All in good time, my dear," Elijah promises, "for now I believe it's time to return you to your car."

Not seeing any reason to fight him on it Eloise nods once and heads for the apartment door, jumping only slightly when Elijah appears out of thin air to hold it open for her. He looks like he hasn't just spent the better part of the last hour letting Eloise cut him open and spill his blood all over the counter. Ridiculous. Eloise blows a loose hair out of her face as she steps passed him into the hall where she waits for Elijah to lock up his apartment before moving for the elevator. Only, she never actually makes it because one second she's making her way down the hall and the next someone's wrapping they're arms around her and then when she's able to comprehend anything she's in the passenger seat, Elijah's behind the wheel, and they're pulling out onto the main road leading away from Elijah's apartment. The vampire in the seat beside her looks entirely too proud of himself so Eloise is forced to spend the rest of the ride silently looking out the window pretending her face isn't burning and the reason she's not looking at Elijah is because she's embarrassed. Because she's not. Embarrassed. Annoyed, maybe, yep, totally annoyed. How dare he manhandle her? Soft laughter comes from the man beside her, forcing Eloise to huff loudly and turn more toward the door. It only makes Elijah's laughter more prominent. At least someone's happy with the proceedings of today she supposes. Eloise curls up tighter in the seat, rests her head against the window, and focuses on the sound the muffler doesn't quite manage to hide instead of the deep baritone laughter coming from beside her. It's going to be a long ride back to Mystic Falls. Eloise thinks that maybe it won't be that bad.


	10. Chapter 10

"Damon said you plan on working with Klaus." Bonnie says, storming into the Salvatore's kitchen like some sort of avenging angel, Elena's little brother following obediently at her heels.

The older witch remains curled over her mortar, carefully grinding the dried vervain she'd gathered into a fine purple dust with short rotations of her wrist. There's Eucerin and empty plastic squirt bottles lined up on the island in front of her along with a funnel and a sterilized metal scoop. Eloise has been working for the better part of two hours trying to keep herself productive while Elijah gets into contact with whoever it is he thinks will be able to get information to them about Klaus and his current contact info. She honestly doesn't appreciate the accusation in the younger witch's tone.

"Better than killing Elena don't you think?" Eloise asks but never looks up to meet the other witch's pretty green gaze.

"How else are you going to break the curse? The key element of breaking it is doppelganger blood, last time I checked that means killing Elena."

Feeling short tempered and twitchy - because she still hasn't quite figured out the how she's going to do this yet and she's feeling a little attacked at the moment - Eloise cleans off the bottom of her pestle before setting it aside so she can give Bonnie her undivided attention. She looks tense; her hair's perfectly styled, her clothes are perfectly matched, and not even a speck of makeup is out of place and still she looks about ready to combust and bring the entire house down with her. Fortunately for Eloise, Bonnie has yet to regain her powers from the Martin's, so it's not like she'll be doing much of anything until that happens. Which is part of the reason Eloise doesn't feel like she should take the other witch's abilities into consideration. A Bennett witch without magic isn't much of a threat as Eloise has come to learn that most witches from powerful families tend to rely too much on their magic when it comes to protecting themselves or harming others. Bonnie isn't any more a threat to Eloise at the moment than Jeremy is. It's a heady feeling, honestly.

"Look, Klaus is coming into town one way or another. What do you think you're going to do about it? Fight him? You aren't strong enough on your own, and even if you managed to find the place all the witches died at - yeah, Damon told me about that - harvesting that kind of magic and channeling it will kill you." Eloise comments, and she feels more than a vague sense of satisfaction when the Gilbert boy's eyes widen.

"It's better than sacrificing Elena to a monster." Bonnie shoots back, snarling and gnashing her teeth like a wild animal.

Eloise raises an unimpressed eyebrow and says, "Stop being so judgmental Bennett, it's not all that becoming of a modern day witch."

"Are you seriously lecturing me right now?"

"Yeah, I seriously am." Eloise pauses to blow a few flyaway hairs out of her face. "Think about it like this Bonnie; what's more dangerous? From my point of view none of you are going to be able to defeat Klaus on your own and trying is only going to piss him off and we all know how that ends. Katherine's entire family was slaughtered... You still have family, don't you Bonnie? A dad and a cousin or something right? Yeah, Klaus won't have any problem stripping their skin off their bodies and hanging the tanned remains from your porch railing."

"So what," Jeremy interrupts, stopping either girl from continuing, "you want to help him to keep us safe?"

"Safer. Being cooperative will get us a long way. I plan on figuring out a way to break the curse without using Elena but if worse comes to worse we'll be able to negotiate her life by being helpful."

"She'll die!" Bonnie yells.

Eloise understands the rage, she does, she'd bring entire cities down if anything happened to Miranda or Damon - hell, she'd bring entire cities down for her siblings still despite their lack of closeness - but being irrationally aggressive about this situation isn't going to help any of them in the long run. Men like Klaus aren't used to cooperation that isn't coerced and hopefully the fact that Eloise, who's a powerful witch, and Elena, who's the fucking doppelganger, are willing to help should get them enough brownie points for Eloise to bargain everyone's safety. Besides, Klaus needs Elena alive. Can't make more hybrids with a dead doppelganger, so Elena coming out of this whole thing alive is honestly in Klaus' best interest.

"And you're forgetting that I'm a witch who's already brought one dead girl back to life. Get over yourself, Bennett." Eloise grits her teeth as she begins measuring vervain into lotion bottles. "I'm here to make sure you, Elena, and everyone else in this shitty little town come out of this mess alive. If you want to go and enrage an original vampire be my guest, but it'll be a little hard to do that without your magic."

Jeremy's cry of protest and Bonnie's abrupt jerk backward tells Eloise she's struck a nerve, but that doesn't bother her too badly because Bonnie's a powerful witch but she's so young and she needs to realize that the world isn't good and evil, right and wrong. It's varying shades of grey and dashes of vivid emotions that make up nature and not some silly philosophy that someone is purely good or purely evil. A common witch mentality when it comes to other non-witches. Eloise mixes her concoction, screws a lid on the bottle, and tosses it at Jeremy.

"Put it on in the morning, it'll keep vampires from touching you or compelling you." She tells him before doing the same to the other bottles.

"Do you have a plan?" Bonnie asks, voice terse but no longer shrill.

"I have a few actually."

"And you aren't going to sacrifice Elena?"

"Look, I'm not saying I won't but I'll bring her back if worst comes to worst." Eloise says, a half promise and lie spilling from her lips like honey.

Hopefully, Eloise will be able to pull the curse out of Klaus without too much difficulty. Miranda's already looking for possible solutions to their problem and Eloise isn't afraid of bringing Elena back from the dead - though she doubts Klaus won't figure out his own way to keep Elena alive if her blood's key to his hybrids. The only issue Eloise sees with all of this is the doppelganger herself. A cage is still a cage if it's golden and won't Elena be living a caged life? Sure, Eloise can negotiate a certain amount of freedom for Elena but after that? Will Elena be willing to bend to the whims of Klaus' arrogance? Will Damon and Stefan and anyone else enthralled with Elena? They know that killing Klaus or any other Original will likely end in their demise and Eloise has no way to counteract that. Not that she would. Having this fatal tie between the Originals and the rest of the vampire race isn't something Eloise is willing to cut, not when it makes keeping murderous vampires in like so much easier. A breath escapes Eloise as she turns to put her soiled items in the sink for washing.

"And then what?" Jeremy asks, softer and more hesitant than Bonnie might.

Eloise offers him a thin smile.

"I negotiate a deal with Klaus, Elena lives her life, the people she loves are protected, and Klaus leaves you all alone for the most part and never causes problems until the next doppelganger pops up."

"So you'll be like Katherine? Bargaining one innocent life for another?" Bonnie spits and then screams, hands reaching up to tangle around her head where the pain is beginning to swell.

The older witch drops the spell, allowing Bonnie to take a few deep breaths as she rounds the island to stand in front of the other witch's bowed form, Jeremy seems conflicted over whether or not he wants to intervene but a look from Eloise freezes him in place.

"I understand why you're asking me these questions, Bonnie." She tells the other witch cordially even as her eyes narrow, "Elena's your family in her own way and you want to keep her safe. I understand, truly, I do... But let me make one thing perfectly clear: I'm not afraid of you and I don't take kindly to being accused of things. You want Elena to live? You want Caroline and Matt and all of your other friends to die of old age instead of unnatural means? I'm more than willing to help, but if my methods aren't satisfactory you're going to have to suck it up and tolerate my presence until I leave this mess of a town... Understood?"

Murky green eyes stare up at her, the tears making the green hue so much more prominent. Eloise smiles as she reaches out to press her thumb against the area between Bonnie's eyebrows, siphoning the pain away until it's gone and Bonnie's eyes dry. She pulls away before the witch can lash out.

"I like you Bonnie, you're loyalty to your friends is commendable, but you need to learn that there are ways around a problem that don't involve violence." Eloise then leaves the kitchen without so much as a backwards glance.

Without anything pressing to do Eloise makes for Katherine's room. While some might find it... morally questionable to go through a soon-to-be-dead woman's items Eloise thinks it's a perfect idea what with Bonnie and Jeremy probably lingering to see what she does next and having nothing better to do as she waits for Elijah to get a hold of her. It's not like the older vampire's going to miss anything, she's going to die soon anyway and Eloise thinks that she might as well do one good thing and give away some of the clothes she isn't going to use anymore. Eloise slips into the guest room, eyes the closet and the dresser, and sighs. Ok, so maybe she isn't here to take any of Katherine's clothes. Maybe she's here to go through all of the other woman's things and make sure she isn't hiding anything. You know, like the moonstone or a big ole book of contacts with something suspicious. Because there's no way Elena's mother coming back into town doesn't have to do with Katherine. So it's with a tired sigh that Eloise makes for the dresser and begins sorting through all of Katherine's clothes. When the more obvious means of hiding something falls short, Eloise expands her search. She finds a box full of jewelry tucked in the back of the closet under a pile of random shit Damon probably threw in there the last time he needed a place to store something, a couple thousand dollars is found carefully taped underneath the dresser and Eloise pockets that shit because she can, there's a phone in a Ziploc bag at the bottom of the tank in the bathroom. Eloise rolls her eyes as she fishes the damned thing out and checks to make sure it's all good. There's probably nothing on it, Eloise wouldn't put it past Katherine to hide things that aren't important just to mess with everyone, but she fishes it out of the bag and shoves it in her back pocket all the same before leaving the bathroom.

A quick search shows that the rest of the house is empty. Bonnie and Jeremy must have left at some point and the Salvatore brothers had headed out earlier that morning to deal with the whole Isobel being back situation. With nothing better to do Eloise pulls out her phone so she can shoot a quick text Elijah's way. It's not even a full minute before he's calling her back. Eloise snorts as she hits the accept call button.

"It was a yes or no answer, Elijah, you didn't have to call me." Eloise says as she makes for the library.

"Yes, well, I wouldn't put it past Klaus to have something to do with Elena's mothering being in town."

"Then it's safe to assume he knows Elena's alive."

"I would say so," Elijah takes a breath, releases it, and whispers something to someone who isn't her before continuing with a contemplative, "I would expect to see him within the next few days. My brother is extremely paranoid, he'd certainly want to behold the doppelganger for himself to ensure this all isn't some sort of trap."

"Damn. You'd think he'd be happy to hear about any doppelganger."

A soft huff of laughter, then, "I assure you, Miss Brathwaite, my brother will be more than thrilled."

"Wonderful... Does he have any tricks? Like, is there something he does when he's trying to be inconspicuous?" She asks, because who better to question than the man's own brother.

"Klaus was always fond of switching bodies with those closest to anyone who displeased him."

"So he'd probably hop into someone who isn't expecting it? Like Jenna or..."

"Or perhaps Alaric Saltzman, yes. I dare say he might be more Klaus' speed." Elijah says.

"Should I say anything to the others do you think?"

"You're asking me?"

Why wouldn't she? Elijah's over a thousand years old. He's seen kingdoms rise and fall, nations build themselves and topple under the weight of their arrogance. Who better to ask than him? This might be a bit too heavy to admit out loud but Elijah's probably the only person Eloise will ask advice from when it comes to a situation like this.

"You're his brother aren't you?"

"Waiting," Elijah says after a moment, "will allow you the opportunity to catch Klaus alone. If you could convince the lovely Elena to accompany you it might surprise him enough that he'll be willing to talk."

Eloise bites her lip and says, "I don't want to drag Elena into this just yet... What if I gave him Katherine?"

"You have Katerina?"

"She's currently desiccating in the basement, answer the question." Eloise replies a bit blandly.

"I would say that bringing Katerina may be a way to get into Klaus' good graces. He's always been generous those who please him and having Katerina in his grasp would be especially pleasing to him."

"Generous enough to talk to me about his curse?"

"Perhaps not so generous as all that."

Eloise sighs loudly, taps her hand against her knee, and then a thought occurs to her.

"What if you came with me?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"I mean, sure, you and Klaus are kind of on the outs but I know a couple of pretty nasty spells that'll keep you safe enough from him and with you there to play interference I might be able to get somewhere with him."

Elijah is silent to several seconds, long enough to make Eloise wonder if maybe she said the wrong thing, but then he lets out a hesitant, "I'll meet you at the boarding house to collect Katerina. If you insist on doing this I want to ensure I don't end up in a box."

_Like the rest of my siblings_ remains unsaid but Eloise gets it.

"That's fine. We might need to swing by the Martin house as there might be something good in one of their grimoires."

"Nonsense, I'll collect them from Jonas and meet you in, say, an hour?"

"Sounds good. The rest of the scooby gang is out and about so be careful, yeah?"

"Of course."

The line goes dead seconds after. Eloise glances at the screen before she drops her phone onto her stomach. Katherine isn't on any vervain that Eloise knows of. Having been in the basement for well over twenty four hours it's safe to assume there isn't any of the substance left in her system even if she'd been smart enough to take it after she got out of the tomb the first time. For a vampire that's spent the past five hundred or so years running Katherine's not all that smart. At least she'll be easy to compel, that'll make Elijah and Klaus happy if nothing else. Know what else would make Klaus happy? The moonstone. Eloise wonders if she should bring it with her or leave it in her bedroom. Getting Damon to give it to her had been a pain, so she really doesn't want to give up the moonstone until she's certain Klaus isn't going to attempt to kill her.

Ridiculous, isn't it? How much significance a witch can put on something as small as doppelganger blood.

Eloise scoffs. She's never worked with it before and she's not saying that there isn't something about it that gives magic a little extra something but... it's not exactly necessary for powerful spells to work. In fact, Eloise thinks that it was a poor choice of binding agent. Whoever created the vampire spell initially should have used something a little more easily obtained so that they could get more of it should their spell go wrong. Common sense is what it is. Eloise has done some pretty messy spells and ritual but her binding agents have always been pretty easy to get her hands on; blood of a virgin, as cliche as it is, adds a bit more _oomph_ when it comes to fertility rituals but isn't dangerous to get in the grand scheme of things. Eloise wonders if maybe the reason the doppelganger had been used was because it was more convenient than finding someone or something else. Oh well, can't change anything now.

Although, Eloise is going to have to come up with something quick or this whole talk with Klaus is going to go downhill pretty fucking quickly. Her mind drifts to the vampire and the werewolf currently slumming it in the camper outside of town, hidden away from prying eyes of both the supernatural and normal kind. Jules - wasn't that the werewolf's name - isn't her friend, and there's a certain amount of vindictive pleasure that comes forth whenever Eloise thinks of giving her to Klaus to use for the ritual... Truth of the matter is that Eloise has no idea how else to break the curse without killing Elena. Using Expression might be a possibility but Eloise has never used that much power outside of a group so she doesn't really want to start now, and it's not like Miranda can just pull the curse out of him without hurting herself. Hmm. What to do, what to do.

Elena would be fine, maybe a little emotionally traumatized but they could always find some rapist or other questionable character to inhabit Elena's body while the ritual is taking place. It's not like the power in the blood is going to change if there's another person's mind in the body. Inspired, Eloise shoots Elena a quick text to let her know that she's planning on meeting with Klaus and that she has an idea for how to get her out of the ritual without her ever having to be present. Yep, it could work. Rose's current body was dead when Damon brought it in and Rose came through all right. Eloise misses Rose, she was the only girl in the group that didn't bend to Elena's whims. Sadly, her new friend is currently hunkered down a few states over trying to avoid Klaus' ire. Eloise gets it. She'd try and get out of the line of fire if she was in Rose's position too.

A knock on the front door as Eloise grunting softly as she rises from the couch so she can let Elijah in.

He's dressed impeccably. Like always. Eloise smiles as she steps aside so the Original can step into the foyer. Once Eloise shuts the door she turns to smile at Elijah only to find him holding out an incredibly old looking grimoire. The leather is butter smooth under her fingers and the carefully pressed indentations along the edges hardly register as Eloise runs her fingers along them.

"What's this?" She asks after she's flipped through a few of the pages, "Gaelic?"

"Cymraeg, actually."

"Huh, how did the Martin's get a Welsh grimoire?"

Elijah smirks at her and offers a soft, "Quite expensively, I assume."

Sounds about right.

The Brathwaite coven's library had been extensive when Eloise was a girl and it's unlikely her family members had stopped collecting after she left, but the Martin's are three witches taking an interest in witch history as opposed to the fifty-some Brathwaite's who'd collected spells and rituals like a hoarder collects junk. The grimoire in her hand is old but the spells contained within are well preserved and Eloise smiles as she moves to place the grimoire on a side table. Placing one hand palm down over the book Eloise channels her thoughts into something a bit more productive, and the resulting breeze flips through a good three-fourths of the book before stopping on a page decorated with carefully written instructions and the image of a person. Eloise grabs the grimoire and shows it to Elijah.

"There's our spell," she tells him with a bright, delighted grin. "Know how to read Cymraeg?"

Because there's no way she's going to be able to do this spell without knowing the proper pronunciation of the incantation or the steps required to complete the spell. Making things up as she goes has been something Eloise has gotten good at since leaving the coven, unfortunately, she can't just make up this spell without fucking it up in truly epic ways. The last thing she needs to do is accidentally burn Elijah alive from the inside out.

"I do not."

Eloise sighs, "Looks like that's a bust. Here."

Elijah stares at the grimoire before very gently pushing her hand closer to her body so that it's no longer hovering in the air between them.

"Keep it," he says.

"You're sure?"

"The Martin's won't miss it."

It might be morally questionable to accept a gift from someone who may or may not have stolen said gift in the first place but Eloise can't bring herself to care. Grimoire's like this are rare. Older grimoires tend to stay in families or covens, they don't just go out into the world and find themselves in the hands of desperate witches. The grimoires Eloise keeps in her shop are all donated, or given to her by older witches who don't require them anymore, or pawned. They're all phenomenal tools but the majority of them aren't this old - the ones that are usually end up in her apartment, taken by herself or Miranda for safekeeping and never actually shown to customers. So this? This is probably one of the best things Eloise has ever gotten from someone. She smiles as she wraps her arms more comfortably around the grimoire.

"Thank you... I might have something in my work room. If all else fails, I can just throw something together really fast that'll add a bit more _oomph_ to what you're already packing."

"It's of no importance. I'd rather we plan for Klaus' arrival than waste what little time we have."

Eloise bites into her cheek as she nods.

"Well, we're going to have to go to Ric's apartment I suppose... Wait around outside maybe? I think he's going to be out of the apartment so if all else fails we can just compel the neighbor to go on a long weekend trip or something."

"What will we do with Katerina?"

"Snap her neck, vervain her, compel her? I don't really care, Elijah."

The dark haired vampire nods once before reaching to adjust his cuffs. If Eloise didn't know any better she'd say he's nervous; about seeing Katherine, meeting Klaus, or getting his siblings back Eloise doesn't know but she's willing to bet it's a bit of all three. What his relationship to Katherine is Eloise isn't sure but she's met the meaner version of Elena and so it's not hard to figure out that the two of them probably had some sort of history in the past. Eloise curls her fingers a bit tighter around the grimoire in her hands to fight off the shock of panic that strikes through her. Elijah won't fuck this up for her. Not when his siblings are on the line, not when she's admitted to practicing Expression. He's a man of honor and while that doesn't mean a whole lot to Eloise it does mean something when it comes to Elijah. Sighing, Eloise nods her chin in the direction of the basement door.

"Want to see her?" She asks.

"I think it would be best if we compelled her into complacency before we take her to Klaus." Elijah says, fingers lingering dancing over his cuff link.

"She's in the basement."

Together they make their way through the boarding house, down the stairs leading to the basement, and up to Katherine's cell door where Eloise carefully undoes the little window so that she can peak inside. She jumps a bit when Katherine's angry brown eyes appear in her line of sight, the snarl that the rightfully starving vampires lets loose making every prey instinct in Eloise's body go off just seconds before an arm around around her waist and pulls her away from the door where Katherine's attempting to snag her through the window.

"Now, now, Katerina," Elijah drawls, "is that any way to behave in front of a guest?"

A startled sort of whimpering gasp leaves the doppelganger, her hand disappears from the window, and this time it's Elijah who peaks through the small opening to watch her retreat. Whatever he must see must please him because he steps away from the door and nods to Eloise, too smart to assume she hasn't placed spells on the door to keep it sealed. Eloise likes that. She does not, however, like pulling down the spells so that Elijah can peal the door open and step into the cell with Katerina. He leaves the door open so Eloise can see the pair of them interact and, honestly, she's not entirely sure why the sight of Elijah speeding in front of Katherine and wrapping a careful hand around the base of her neck has her feeling jealous... Ok, that's a lie. Elijah's hot. Eloise would totally not be upset if he looked at her or touched her the way she's sure he's looked at and touched Katherine in the past.

"Elijah, please don't let them do this!" Katherine is begging, "I'll tell you everything I know: I'll tell you where Isobel is, I'll tell you what John told me about the Originals, I'll tell you anything you want to know just please, please don't let them do this!"

Eloise watches as Elijah moves his wrist so that his thump brushes along Katherine's bottom lip, a tender gesture. One that has no place here in the Salvatore cellar where people are put to be forgotten about. So it almost takes her by surprise when Elijah wrenches Katherine's head to the side and lets her lifeless body slump to the dirty floor of the cell. It's startling to say the least. Of all the things Eloise had expected to happen this hadn't been one of them. Well, no, it had _been_ a possibility. Fleeting. Eloise hadn't actually thought Elijah would be so disinterested in Katherine's plight to just snap her neck like he had. Seems a little impersonal considering all they've been through together... but maybe not unexpected. It had been Katherine, after all, who caused a rift of sorts to form between Elijah and Klaus hadn't it? Perhaps not a large one but a rift all the same. Eloise stares at the unconscious vampire before looking to Elijah.

"We'll put her in the boot." He explains, the lines around his eyes a little more pronounced.

"Uh, yeah, sounds like a good plan." Eloise steps out of the doorway, allowing Elijah to slip by once he's gathered a limp Katherine into his arms.

Neither of them say anything until after they've got Katherine hidden in the trunk of Eloise's car. Alaric doesn't live too far away but as Eloise has never been to his apartment before she has Elijah direct her through the sleepy-seeming town of Mystic Falls. Driving allows Eloise to gather herself mentally. They're going to see Klaus, Eloise isn't worried about that, what she's worried about is whatever witch the Original Hybrid has managed to pull into his circle of followers. A glance at Elijah shows him staring contemplatively out the window. Clearly he's not all that bothered by what's about to go down at Alaric's apartment. But he's not mortal. Why would he have to worry when he can't be killed? Eloise pulls down a road lined on each side with cute little storefronts and wonders if maybe this isn't one of her best plans. Eater bunny. That's what Rose had called Elijah. She'd said Klaus was worse. So what does that make him? Krampus? If they're going with the holiday figures that would probably be the best fit. What does that make her then?

Th sun is setting when storefronts give way to larger brick buildings and Eloise turns into the near empty lot to her left at Elijah's behest. Eloise doesn't recognize many of the cars. Alaric's is there, but so is a silver sedan and a couple other cars that Eloise doesn't know the name of. Cars are cars. She only knows the really expensive ones because her uncle had been obsessed.

After sliding into an empty slot Eloise eases the car into park and turns to Elijah. She reaches out, fingers drifting across the crown of Elijah's head as a few more words pour out of her mouth. A protection spell. Not a very powerful one considering this is all pretty impromptu but it'll give him a little something to add to his healing capabilities. Eloise pulls away as Elijah looses a shiver.

"What was that?" He asks.

"It'll reflect harm onto an attacker. It won't stop everything but it'll deter witches." Eloise says.

Elijah nods once before exiting the car, ass outlined deliciously by the fit of his suit pants.

Flushed, Eloise follows the vampire's lead and exits the car.

Katherine is already hefted up into Elijah's arms by the time Eloise gets to the back. She looks more like an exhausted child than a dead woman with her head tucked under Elijah's chin and her face peacefully lax. Nodding, Eloise motions for the apartment building. When Klaus gets out of Alaric's body the two of them are going to have a talk about the state of his security - or lack of, in better words - because it's all too easy for Eloise to get into the building, up the stairs, and to the floor Elijah claims Alaric lives on. And the two of them are going to have a conversation about that too. Elijah knows too much about everyone in the group. So it'll probably be best if they take care of any loose ends they don't want the Original airing to the public. Eloise has a feeling Alaric has a couple of those.

The shiny gold 9 on Alaric's door seems to taunt them.

"Uh, you wanna knock?" Eloise asks, thumb pointing toward the door.

Elijah stares at her for a moment before flipping Katherine onto his shoulder - _whoa_ \- and kicking the door in - double _whoa_ \- which allows him to step into the apartment. Eloise follows hesitantly behind, bouncing between following fearlessly and lingering so she can do damage control should one of Alaric's neighbors come looking into the commotion. Because there is commotion. Someone inside the room clearly hadn't wanted Elijah there. Items are tossed about, something streaks through her peripheral vision, and then there's a thump that isn't all that different from the sound Katherine made when Elijah killed her earlier. Deciding that now would be a great time to do some actual damage control Eloise slips into the apartment and finds Katherine sprawled out on the floor, a man slouched against the wall, and Elijah standing over Alaric's prone body. She attempts to close the door behind her but it gapes a little. So she throws up a ward and calls it a day. No one can leave, no one can come in. Sounds pretty good to Eloise.

She moves to stand by Elijah.

"What the fuck is this?" Eloise asks, horrified by the primitive looking glass jars full of blood, tubes, and equipment around Alaric's body.

"I believe my brother's witch hasn't quite finished his task," Elijah smiles a bit, "Klaus will be most displeased."

"Uh, you're brother's witch is shit at this sort of thing." Eloise mutters, leaning down to take in Alaric's form.

"He is skilled enough to have earned Klaus' approval."

Eloise points to the blood sitting on the floor and says, "Primitive. There are better ways to displace someone. Here. Let me show you."

The IV comes out messy but Eloise isn't a physician. She has no idea how they're supposed to come out so all she can do is hope Alaric's not going to, like, form a blood clot and die. That'd be a shit way to go. With the IVs out Eloise moves the equipment out of the way, leaves behind a little bit of the blood, and makes for the kitchen to gather items. Alaric may not be a witch but it's clear he's prepared for just about everything. Candles are found in a kitchen drawer, the cupboard by the fridge is full of different herbs, and there's a lighter on the table. She grabs what she needs before making for the living room.

Candles spread, herbs mixed and formed in a circle around Klaus to keep him contained, and his blood carefully poured to connect them all, Eloise begins chanting. This. This is one of the things she learned early. It had been a fun little trick that the older kids in her coven had taught the younger. Always under supervision, always after they'd been taught the ins and outs of the casting, always after they could recite the entire ritual in at least three different languages. When Eloise was twelve she jumped into her cousin Raphael. They'd played each other for a week before anyone got smart. Or maybe they'd always known and were just indulging the next generation of Brathwaite witches. Doesn't mater now. Eloise dips her fingers in thick red blood and draws a symbol between Alaric's brows. Then the candles go out.

"What's happening?" Elijah asks.

Eloise looks away from Klaus and says, "He'll be waking up in a few moments... maybe you shouldn't be here right now? It might not look good."

"Oh, don't leave on my account, brother." a chilly voice commands, "I've so been looking forward to this moment."

_No fear_, her mother's voice rings through her head, _you are a Brathwaite woman. We do not know fear_.

Steeled, Eloise turns to meet Alaric's narrowed gaze but she doesn't smile. Smiling would suggest she wants to do something unsavory. It would make her look smug. And this is not a moment to appear smug.

"My name is Eloise," she says, "and I'm here to help you with your curse."

Maybe it's not the smart thing to say. Maybe she should have eased him into it. But the problem with that is Klaus' anger with Elijah will inevitably cloud his judgement, so what better way to bypass the drama and potential death than by giving Klaus exactly what he wants. The curse broken is obviously one of those things but being able to create hybrids is something he wants a fair deal more Eloise suspects. What would be the point of breaking the curse if he can't create more brethren. By the sharpening of Klaus' gaze Eloise thinks she might have struck home.

"Is that so?" He asks, voice mocking and lilting in a way that suggests pain if she doesn't respond properly.

"Yes. I have a personal reason for you succeeding."

"And I suppose tying yourself to my brother caters to those needs." Klaus smiles mockingly as he adds, "Elijah always did have a fondness for witches, a shame he never manages to keep any of them alive."

Behind her Elijah goes still. Eloise knows because before Klaus' comment Elijah's knuckled had ghosted over the space between her shoulder blades, comforting in their consistency before Klaus opened his mouth to antagonize the older Original. Eloise tries not to think too hard about what he'd said. It's not her business and the implications are pretty fucking clear.

"I don't think you want to antagonize either of us, Mr. Mikaelson."

"And why is that, love?"

"Because without me you won't be able to create more hybrids." She shrugs as Klaus lunges at her, unable to get through her barrier she remains unharmed despite his clear intent. "Oh, you'll break your curse just fine but after that? Curses are tricky little things. Believe me. I've performed several."

Klaus remains behind her barirer, panting and snarling like a vicious animal. He pretty much is. Eloise hopes her face is calm, smooth like a lake on a windless day. Her mother was always so put together, nothing ever phased her and no one ever seemed to get into her head, some of it may have come from the way her own mother had raised her but Eloise likes to think that her mother just... never gave enough of a fuck about strangers to believe their threats. She'd been a terrifying woman. Eloise had always respected that.

"Explain." Klaus snarls, and Eloise does.

She explains her reasoning for helping him, tells him about the ghost, how if she created something that scared her enough to curse them she'd never let them create another of their kind. She'd cripple them, dangle the promise of hope in front of them and rip it way because she'd want them to hurt, she'd want them to feel utterly helpless. The longer she talks the angrier Klaus seems to get. Why wouldn't he? Katherine's ancestor had been killed to create the curse, he'd been willing to kill Katherine to free himself and it would have solved one problem but then a hundred more would have popped up, and now he's attempting to do the same to this doppelganger. Anger is an emotion Eloise excepted. Rage, she expected. So when he screams and throws the chair Alaric had been slumped in across the room Eloise doesn't even jump, though Elijah steps close enough that she can feel the rise and fall of his chest at her back. As the rage fades Klaus turns to Eloise looking horribly angry but he seems less volatile. She's probably going to die.

"Let me out of this circle." Klaus demands, tone deceptively calm.

"Are you going to try and kill me or Elijah?" She asks even as she moves closer to the circle.

"Oh, love, if you get me out of here and help me achieve my ends I'll be the very last of your worries." Klaus promises.

Eloise is shaking her head, arms crossing over her chest as she says, "Me. But not Elijah. I don't expect you to forgive your brother for whatever's gotten the two of you to hate each other so badly but I owe Elijah... I'll let you out on the promise that you won't attempt to dagger, desiccate, or kill any of my people without incredibly good reason."

Dark eyes flick between her and Elijah, narrowing and widening beneath furrowed brows.

It surprises her when Klaus nods. And while not a verbal confirmation it's better than nothing. Eloise pushes her foot through the line of herbs and salt, nudging aside one of the candles with her foot.

Within seconds she's pinned against the wall, fingers curled around her throat, an angry Original pressing Alaric's body too close to her own. Across the room Elijah makes a noise, makes to move, but Klaus merely squeezes tighter and turns to Elijah.

"Don't, brother, or I'll rip off her pretty little head." then to Eloise he says, "If you're lying to me, love, I'll destroy everything you've ever touched."

Having never taken well to threats Eloise snarls as she shoves the palm of her hand against Klaus' chest, magic soaring through her and slamming into Alaric's body with the force of a fucking train. As he's not a vampire in Alaric's body Klaus is sent flying across the room where he's stopped from going any further by a bookshelf. Eloise bares her teeth at Klaus in a shark's grin.

"Don't ever threaten me, Klaus," she says, "I'm not one of your goons and I'm not afraid of you... The next time you put a threatening hand on me will be the last time you have hands to touch anything with."

Across the room Klaus smiles, the sharpness of it strange on Alaric's face, but any response he has is stopped when a pitiful sound of pain slips through the now conscious doppelganger's lips. It would seem that even in death Katherine can't help making a dramatic entrance. Lovely.

"Elijah brought you a peace offering. Have fun. We'll see you tomorrow." Eloise doesn't wait to see if Elijah follows before leaving the apartment.

_Today was a good day_, she decides,_ tomorrow's going to be better_.


End file.
